Aussie international cliff-diving champ Joey Zuber recalls the stack that almost killed him.
In early 2008, I was in Colombia to do an exhibition. From the airport it was a nine-hour drive on bumpy dirt roads. I thought, “What the f–k are we doing here?” It was this dusty dirt bowl. It turned out to be a big
music festival, and we were going to do the exhibition off a 16m-high bridge. The river was very shallow. It was like, “Shit, it’s under three metres – it’s 2.6, this is borderline,” Then I chose a dive I probably shouldn’t have...
Point break
I did the dive, and locked out for the water. Halfway through the water I was thinking, “I should have stopped by now.” I hit the bottom, crouched down and thought, “Shit, I hit hard,” then I couldn’t find my right leg. It had locked back, snapped and was back at a 90 degree angle in the sand. I pushed off my left leg and felt the other leg wrap around the front of my body, ’cos it was just dangling.
I came out screaming, horrified at what I’d done. As they hauled me back onto the boat, I pulled my leg straight and held onto it as my bones were overlapping side by side due to the muscle contracting.
They tried to organise to get me a
helicopter, so I waited in this pissant medical room but they told me the choppers couldn’t fly in because of the guerrillas in the area. I said, “Strap me up,” and then it was back along dirt roads with no pain relief – they’d run out of morphine.
I had to change ambulances halfway through and they wouldn’t pick me up on the spinal board. The guy wanted it back. I was screaming at him not to move me, it was too
painful
. My friend said, “We’ve got to do it mate, these guys are pricks.”
They slid me off – it was agony. The new ambulance driver said, “Haven’t you had any pain relief?” I said no, and he looked at me with this look like, “F–king Jesus!” I asked if I could have some and he replied, “Of course!” I then asked him to knock me out.
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