Tragedy can strike at any time.
There is no rhyme or reason for it. But the one thing that is concrete is how it transforms lives in mere seconds.
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These freak accidents take many forms: a devastating car crash, drowning, even a skydiving mishap.
Here are 10+ celebs who survived freak accidents and lived to tell the tale.
1. Kaley Cuoco
“I had a freak accident,” Cuoco told Ellen DeGeneres when explaining the origin behind the scars on her legs.
“At the end of the lesson my horse spooked and I wasn’t really expecting it and I fell off. I was actually getting up but my horse was still kind of spooking.”
2. Tracy Morgan
The comedian is lucky to be alive today after a major six-vehicle accident in 2014.
Sadly, the accident killed his best friend and left Morgan in a coma for two weeks. The experience still haunts him to this day.
3. Leonardo DiCaprio
The actor has survived three freak accidents.
The first was a Great White shark attack.
“I had a huge fear of sharks, and when I did Blood Diamond in 2006 I actually got stuck in a cage with a great white,” he told Ellen DeGeneres in 2016.
The second freak accident involved a plane.
“I was in business class, and an engine blew up in front of my eyes. I was sitting there looking out at the wing, and the entire wing exploded in a fireball,” he told Wired .
And finally, he had a terrifying sky-diving accident.
He did a tandem dive, but when his diving partner pulled the first chute, it was knotted.
“We did another free fall for like another five, ten seconds.”
Lesson learned: don’t go anywhere with Leo.
4. Kylie Jenner
If you ever wondered how the reality star got the scar on her leg, you can thank a freak accident for that.
While playing hide-and-seek with sister Kendall, she slipped on a pole and it went into her leg. Ouch!
5. Bono
The U2 singer was terrified that he wouldn’t be able to play guitar after a bad bicycle accident in 2014 .
He ended up breaking his arm in six places, in addition to a fractured eye socket, hand, and shoulder blade.
6. Gary Busey
The actor learned the importance of wearing a helmet after he was involved in a motorcycle accident that left him in a coma for a month.
Before this, he had been against helmets and even tried to fight the California helmet law.
7. Zac Efron
When the actor was taking a break from The Greatest Showman and working out in London, he was almost hit by a double-decker bus.
“I slammed on the brakes, went under the front tire, and narrowly missed death,” he said on The Graham Norton Show .
8. Mariska Hargitay
In case you didn’t know, the Law & Order star’s mother was Jayne Mansfield, the ’50s and ’60s-era bombshell that rivaled Marilyn Monroe.
Sadly, she passed away in 1967 from a car accident that also killed her driver, boyfriend, and lawyer.
Mariska was actually in the car that killed her mother, along with her two brothers who also survived.
She ended up with a zig-zag star, which she still has to this day.
“Losing my mother at such an early age is the scar of my soul,” she once told Redbook about losing her mother.
9. Rachel Bilson
The actress was only 16 when she was involved in a head-on collision that left her in a coma for a few days.
The experience ended up changing her life, as she ditched her bad relationship and got her life on track to pursue acting.
10. Travis Barker
Not many people can say that they survived a plane crash, but the Blink-182 drummer can.
He wrote about it in his memoir, writing , “Behind me, I can sense death: a burning airplane that contains the bodies of two pilots and two good friends.”
11. George Clooney
The actor experienced a terrifying on-set accident while filming Catch-22 in Italy.
His motorcycle collided with a Mercedes. “It split my helmet in half, it knocked me out of my shoes. I was hit hard,” he told The Hollywood Reporter .
12. 50 Cent
The rapper was famously shot nine times at the point-blank range. This resulted in him recovering in the hospital for 13 weeks.
There was some good to the traumatic experience, though, as it inspired his album, “Get Rich or Die Tryin'”.
13. Padma Lakshmi
The Top Chef host’s was involved in a severe car crash when she was just 14.
“A tractor-trailer rear-ended us and we fell down an embankment 40 feet.” This left her with a long scar that runs along her arm.
14. Gerard Butler
The actor isn’t a big fan of water after he almost drowned while filming Chasing Mavericks in 2012.
“It was a pretty close call…[The waves] just took me and I couldn’t get up,” he said on The Graham Norton Show .
15. Kanye West
The rapper was involved in a severe car accident that almost killed him in 2002.
“If I would have passed that night, that would have been the end of my legacy,” he told USA Today .
16. Isla Fisher
When the actress was filming an underwater stunt for the movie, Now You See Me , her chains got tangled, leaving her stuck.
“Everyone thought I was acting fabulously. I was actually drowning. … No one realized I was actually struggling,” Fisher said on Chelsea Lately .
