For the stars of Jackass, sustaining an injury seems like something that sort of comes with the territory. We’ve written about how the first female cast member left the show after almost being paralyzed during a stunt. We also touched on the time Johnny Knoxville broke his penis after a dirt bike landed on him from 20 feet in the air. All of that sounds like a cakewalk compared to what Ryan Dunn almost had to endure while working on the show’s first season.
Dunn performed one of his earliest stunts for the Jackass crew in the fifth episode of the original MTV series; the segment was appropriately titled “Poo Diving.” The idea was pretty straightforward: jump into a septic tank at a treatment facility while wearing snorkeling gear, swim around a bit, and show it to millions of people. For safety, they tied a life preserver around Dunn with a rope attached, but after he dove in, Bam Margera quickly let go of the rope. Dunn then had to fight the current to get himself out of the tank.
As a joke, the cameraman told Dunn that the shot was ruined and asked him to do the stunt over. Undeterred, Dunn jumped in a second time without giving it any thought and swam around briefly before hopping back out. When all was said and done, he accomplished what he set out to do, and the stunt would go on to be one of his best remembered. He also took great pleasure in grossing out the rest of the cast and crew by not showering afterward.
It wouldn’t be until Dunn was at a bar some time later that he found out just how dangerous his stunt actually was. A guy who worked at the facility where they were shooting informed Dunn that, roughly a foot from his feet, there was a giant rotating blade used to cut up any debris that made its way into the septic tank. “The fact that you survived is unbelievable, and the fact that you still have feet is…a blessing,” the man told him. In summation, Dunn said, with a tinge of pride in his voice, “I was gonna become a…poop smoothie.”
Check out some of the footage, along with Dunn’s own commentary, below.
The post The ‘Jackass’ Stunt Ryan Dunn Almost Didn’t Make It Through appeared first on VICE.
