{"id":69493,"date":"2023-12-19T15:00:25","date_gmt":"2023-12-19T15:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rapidcelnews.com\/?p=69493"},"modified":"2023-12-19T15:00:25","modified_gmt":"2023-12-19T15:00:25","slug":"bear-grylls-reveals-he-almost-died-when-his-parachute-failed-my-world-just-went-black","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rapidcelnews.com\/tv-movies\/bear-grylls-reveals-he-almost-died-when-his-parachute-failed-my-world-just-went-black\/","title":{"rendered":"Bear Grylls reveals he almost died when his parachute failed – My world just went black\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bear Grylls has told how his \u2018world went black\u2019 after he broke his back when his parachute failed while he was skydiving. <\/p>\n

The 49 year old TV adventurer was lucky to survive with his life and said he should have been paralysed following the terrifying incident – but luckily he missed severing his spinal cord by millimetres. Bear, aged 21 at the time, was skydiving with friends in Zimbabwe when his parachute failed to inflate at 16,000 feet. <\/p>\n

He had been in Southern Africa serving in the Territorial Army with the SAS in 1996 and was enjoying a well deserved break when the accident happened. And, appearing on Tuesday's Good Morning Britain, Bear recalled the moment he realised his parachute had failed and his desperate attempts to save himself. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cI think at the time you\u2019re just desperately trying to sort it out. It was getting dark, you\u2019re just in a sort of fuzz of, \u2018what\u2019s wrong, can I sort this, have I got time to go for this reserve?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then, you know, in a heartbeat, \u2018boom\u2019, the world sort of went black. I came to, a long journey back to eventually this African hospital and I remember a doctor sticking a syringe in my back and suddenly the pain going and me thinking, \u201cI\u2019m better\u2019, trying to get up. And they were going, \u2018you\u2019re not better\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dad of three Bear, who is married to wife Shara, <\/span>went on to say that he did not open the reserve and also described the impact the incident had on him. \u201cThat was a difficult time,\u201d he said. \u201cI broke my back in three places, I was in Africa at the time, and spent months and months back in military rehabilitation in the UK afterwards.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Bear has also previously discussed the incident on the Radio Times podcast. He said: \u201cIt was a dark time. Physicality was such an inherent part of my life, my upbringing, my job in the military \u2013 and suddenly I couldn\u2019t even reach a bathroom without being in agony.\u201d <\/p>\n

He spent 18 months fighting to recover his strength but his outlook on life had changed.<\/p>\n

Bear added: \u201dI had an awareness that I was lucky \u2013 I should have been paralysed. I was within millimetres of severing my spinal cord. I\u2019d been given a second chance, and it gave me a gratitude for life that I didn\u2019t have before.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Bear became one of the youngest people to ever climb Everest two years after his spinal injury at 23 years old. Last month it emerged he led a secret expedition to Everest earlier this year, with the aim of recovering the body of his friend and the brother of Spencer Matthews, who died there in 1999. <\/p>\n

Michael Matthews was just 22 when he died in a mountaineering accident hours after becoming the youngest Briton to conquer the world's highest peak – surpassing his friend Bear. The TV adventurer is friends with the Matthews family, including Michael's brothers, former Made in Chelsea star Spencer, 34, and his older brother James, 47, who is married to Pippa Middleton, the sister of Kate Middleton. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n