A real man on display amid the horror

David Holmes takes Daniel Radcliffe for a drive in his adapted car in the HBO film

The emotional wimps Western culture breeds, the fragile folk who find a micro-aggression in every difficult encounter—it's these types who need to take a page out of the life of David Holmes, who was the stuntman for Daniel Radcliffe in the Harry Potter movies until he flew into a wall and broke his neck leaving him paralysed from the chest down.

Is there anything he gained from the accident? “Yeah, hugely. I will always say breaking my neck made a man of me. For sure, 100%.”

How to find the positive in what was truly horrific, in what led to continuing suffering, seems to be what motivated The Guardian to feature Holmes at the weekend. Some excerpts convey the personal learning that ensued from the accident, and the deepening of his character:

“I knew straight away,” Holmes says, 14 years later. “I knew I’d broken my neck. I was fully conscious.” He had hit the wall at pace and with such brutality that he was left flopping, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. 

After the initial reports about the accident, little was heard about David Holmes. There were no dramatic fallouts, public recriminations, high-profile legal battles. Holmes quietly – and sometimes not so quietly – tried to rebuild his life. Today, the 40-year-old is paralysed from the chest down and lives with four full-time carers. He is wiser and calmer, but in other ways he is little changed.  

Young David was particularly talented, and loved gymnastics: “The greatest sport in the world.” By 13, he was performing in national competitions and hoped to represent Britain at the Olympics. But at school he was bullied for his size: “It’s hard growing up a small bloke. You’re an easy target. I was called ‘titch’ and ‘pipsqueak’, and stuffed in lockers. Gymnastics was my safe space because I was around other gymnasts who were also small.” 

At 14 he was spotted by a stunt manager; at 17, in 2000, he had turned professional and was working as Radcliffe’s stunt double in Harry Potter. In January 2009, Holmes' life changed dramatically:

So stunt coordinators just added weights on the pulley system to enhance the action? “Yes. I’m not going to go into any more detail. The repercussions from my accident mean nobody will be put in that situation again. And that’s enough for me. It’s much more sophisticated and controlled now.”

That legacy of greater safety within the film industry gives Holmes great satisfaction. A second matter that buoys him is that by the time of the accident Radcliffe had become a friend, a friendship that continues today.

Both those elements figure in a film made about how Holmes handled the aftermath of the accident. The film, David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived, screened on TV in Britain and is available on HBO. 

“Listen, thankfully for me, because of this film, my legacy on camera is not now me just hitting that wall 14 years ago. Maybe people will take some positives from the way I handled it, hopefully with a bit of dignity – even though all the dignity is taken away.” Among other things, the accident left him with terrible PTSD. “I’d hear the noise in my head of the crunching of my spinal cord. That would happen as I was falling asleep.”

Through the darkness Holmes called on his sense of humour for relief. One other aspect of his character he counts as a boon during the hard times is that he can recognise that the plight of others can put them in a far worse state than himself:

In hospital, despite being paralysed, he again began to feel he was lucky. “I was a stuntman, I did a risky job, and I was put in a ward with two boys who were there because of hate. One was caught up in the Mumbai terrorist attack – he’s now one of my best friends, Will Pike. The other boy, Oliver Hemsley, was walking on the road in Whitechapel and he was stabbed in the neck and the chest because he’s gay. Then they kicked a bottle of gin into his chest and he had to have his heart taken out [temporarily, and massaged]. They urinated on him as well. So I met real victims. Granted, it was not my fault, but it was a stunt accident and I did that job and I had to accept the risks. No stuntman should ever be doing that job unless you fully accept the risks.” 

Holmes tells me how lucky he is in other ways – to own the house, to have sufficient money through the insurance settlement, to have great friends and support. But he knows in the greater scheme he is anything but lucky. He has rarely talked publicly about what happened to him, and how it has changed his life, but today he makes it clear he doesn’t want to sanitise anything. He campaigns for those who have suffered spinal cord injuries and part of being a campaigner is showing the world what it means to live with such an injury.

In one way, Holmes adapted astonishingly well to his disability – designing his new home from the hospital bed, comforting loved ones, telling his mother there was no point in being angry or bitter. 

Even though he knew he couldn’t return to work, he refused to accept that he had to change his lifestyle after the accident. He talks about a lost decade, then decides “lost” isn’t quite the right word. “It was a decade of decadence and fun. I’d say I wasn’t grown up enough. The thrills I used to get setting myself on fire and jumping off buildings, I was just trying to find that in the way I could.” Such as? “I’d take groups of people to Ibiza and blow thousands of pounds.” He travelled the world, drove ridiculously fast customised cars he could control with his hands, partied, drank and took drugs. “I was fortunate to have those experiences, but I wasn’t really dealing with this. I was putting it on the back burner and not accepting my disability for what it is, which is a life-changing thing.” 

This is where he makes the comment that he has matured enough to make the most of his situation, to forsake a fast and furious lifestyle possible even when disabled, and this maturity allows him to focus on what is important in life.

That maturity also allows Holmes to display a wonderful generosity, drawing the Guardian writer's appreciation. That concern for others is now deeply etched in his character is clear, for one thing, because "Holmes is talking to JK Rowling about introducing a wizard in a wheelchair in the forthcoming Harry Potter TV series." For another, he is intent on ensuring that more devices appear that add to the quality of life of quadriplegics. Third, he produced a podcast series that raised the profile of  stunt people. He also working on drawing together a group who would launch a school to train young Black people for a role in the movie industry.

David Holmes faces the prospect of a shortened life, the Guardian feature states, but he is clearly intent on courageously making the most of his situation, on rising above his material circumstances to make an impact to benefit people who need a helping hand. Truly, he is displaying all the marks of a man.