NEED TO KNOW
Jorma Taccone has been left seriously injured and unable to walk for at least three months after falling off a ladder.
The Lonely Island star, 48, said he is “insanely lucky” to be alive after falling 20 feet at his home as he spoke from the hospital on the Sept. 2 episode of The Lonely Island & Seth Meyers podcast.
Taccone explained that the accident occurred at his farmhouse in Connecticut on the morning of his daughter’s birthday as he was putting up lights while using a “rickety” ladder he borrowed from his neighbor.
“I was painting this barn and then I was like, as a final touch, I should hang these lights that will go around the barn,” he said. “… So I’m using this ladder that my neighbor let me borrow and he was like, ‘Hey, this ladder is bad, like, you shouldn’t use this ladder. It doesn’t have a footing thing …’ ”
“I’m probably 20 feet off the ground on this very rickety ladder and I have it diagonal … I felt it give way and … in this moment my life flashes before my eyes and I’m like, ‘Oh no, I gotta get off this ladder,’ ” recalled Taccone. “…As I’m falling [I’m] like, ‘I’m gonna die.’ And so I drop … and I fall straight on my butt.”
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“I do a lot of screaming and I’m cursing, keep in mind it’s my daughter’s fifth birthday party,” he continued. “So I already feel like sort of numb right so I hit the ground, I’m tangled up in the ladder, I know something’s really bad.”
Following the accident, Taccone went to the hospital, where he underwent surgery. He said he shattered his pelvis on his left side “pretty badly” and detached his sacrum from his spine, among other injuries from the fall.
“On the plus side, all the doctors have been like, ‘You’ll be walking within three to six months and you’ll be back to like all of the stuff that you normally do,’ ” he said. “So we shall see.”
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Taccone described the incident as “life-changing” and is thankful it wasn’t any worse.
“My doctor came in this morning and was like, ‘Oh yeah. If you had hit your heels — if you’d landed on both your heels — that would have been 10 times worse,’ ” he said on the podcast. “I’m like, ‘10 times worse? I didn’t know pain at that level was possible.’ ”
Taccone said he plans to enter “acute rehab” during his recovery over the next few months.
“I’m just gonna have to fight through the pain … it’s definitely no joke,” he said, adding jokingly, “I know this is not the funniest way to start a podcast.”
