Featured Image Credit: Warner Bros/davidholmes83/@Instagram
Topics: Daniel Radcliffe, Entertainment, Harry Potter, Health, Instagram, Celebrity, UK News
Britt Jones
Topics: Daniel Radcliffe, Entertainment, Harry Potter, Health, Instagram, Celebrity, UK News
After a tragic accident on set led to stunt double David Holmes becoming paralysed, he’s been giving fans updates on the cast’s yearly reunion tradition.
David Holmes landed the job of many people’s dreams when he was cast as Daniel Radcliffe’s stand-in on the franchise.
However, the then-gymnast from Essex had an accident on the set of the 2010 film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, that changed everything for him.
Holmes did everything that Radcliffe couldn’t, such as flying on broomsticks and fight-scenes.
Advert
It all began when Greg Powell spotted him as a teenager and asked to do a broomstick test.
He told the Mirror: "I found myself in this wonderful studio strapped to the back of a truck, getting towed down the runway, dragging my feet along the floor in front of Chris Columbus, the director.
“So that’s how I got my job."
Advert
But it was when he hit a wall in a Harry Potter film in 2009, he was left paralysed and having to use a wheelchair for life.
However, his cast mates didn’t give up on him.
Instead, he built an extremely close bond with Radcliffe, who has been open about his guilt about the accident.
Other cast mates also keep in touch with Holmes, and his latest Instagram post shows their yearly tradition where the gang gets together to raise funds for the hospital where he was treated and still receives treatment to this day.
Advert
He shared a snap of himself, Tom Felton who played Draco Malfoy and Matthew Lewis, who was cast as Neville Longbottom.
In the caption he wrote: “So every year for the past 15 years the David Holmes Charity Cricket Match has been running a closed door event for all my family and friends from the film industry, as well as plenty of my old classmates from Harry Potter.
“It’s such a wonderful day, and thanks to Amy Stares who arranges it each year we have raised over £100,000 for the Royal Orthepedic Hospital, which is where I was treated for my recovery injury. I’m still under the care of the expert team and that hospital to this day.
Advert
“I’m proud to announce that this year the cricket match is going to be live streamed so that anybody who wants to watch the event can, as well as contribute to the Fundraising appeal, raising money for @the.rnoh.charity and @greatormondst.”
He explained his injuries in his Sky and HBO documentary executive produced by the lead actor himself, titled David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived.
“Over the next 10 years, the two form an inextricable bond, but on the penultimate film a tragic accident on set leaves David paralysed with a debilitating spinal injury, turning his world upside down," a synopsis for the documentary reads.
It turns out, when he was doing a ‘jerk-back’ stunt, which saw him hooked up to a wire which would fling him backwards to mimic the effects of an explosion, something was about to go wrong.
Advert
Instead of landing in a safe way to avoid injury, he was flung into a wall, causing him to lose his use of his hands and mid-to-lower part of his body.