Ryan Reynolds just dropped a story that left even his closest friends stunned. The 49-year-old Deadpool star revealed that he was hospitalized for nearly a month after being run over by a drunk driver when he was just a teenager in Vancouver. Reynolds shared the harrowing details during a recent GQ interview with his Welcome to Wrexham co-owner Rob McElhenney.
The Night He Made the Responsible Choice
The incident happened in the 1990s when Reynolds was 18 years old. He had just left a bar after having a single beer. Standing by his car, the young actor made what he thought was a very wise decision given his age.
“I walked back and I looked at my car for a second. I thought, ‘You know what? I’m not gonna drive anywhere. Even if it’s four blocks home, absolutely not,’” Reynolds recalled.
Instead of getting behind the wheel, he turned around and started to cross the street. That is when disaster struck.
“Instead, I turned around, started to cross the street, and I was run over by a drunk driver,” Reynolds said.
The Horrifying Extent of His Injuries
The impact was incredibly severe. Reynolds explained that the force of the collision was so great that it completely destroyed the driver’s vehicle.
“Oh yeah, broke every bone in my left side,” Reynolds told McElhenney. “He hit me so hard, his car was not operational.”
McElhenney, visibly shocked, admitted he had never heard this story before despite their years of friendship working together on the Welsh soccer club.
The injuries required Reynolds to spend “four weeks in the hospital” recovering. In a previous interview from 2011, he shared that he actually “woke up three days later” after the crash, finding his late father, James Reynolds, sitting in his room holding a “vomit tray.”
Despite the trauma, Reynolds managed to keep his sense of humor about the treatment. He gave a public shout-out to the medical team who saved him.
“I’d like to thank Dr. Meek at the Vancouver General Hospital for putting me back together so kindly. Socialized medicine, he couldn’t say no,” Reynolds joked.
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A ‘Rickety, Broken Mess’ Who Does His Own Stunts
The accident happened just as Reynolds was starting his acting career, appearing in shows like Hillside (also known as Fifteen) and The Odyssey. While he eventually recovered enough to become one of the biggest action stars in the world, he admits the collision left permanent damage.
“I’ve been a rickety, broken mess,” he said.
Despite having “broken every bone” on one side of his body, Reynolds is famous for insisting on performing his own stunts. He told Variety in 2022 that he loves the physicality of movies. However, as he has gotten older, he has learned to pull back.
“You’re not allowed to eat Advil like cereal,” Reynolds quipped. “Things start to hurt. After I turned 35, being thrown onto cement wasn’t hilarious anymore. It had been upgraded to hell.”
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