“The bull hit was the worst hit I’ve ever taken.”
’s final bow for extreme stunts, as he suffered brain damage after being charged at by a bull.
The bull stunt was arguably the gnarliest of Knoxville’s career. The stuntman suffered a broken wrist and broken ribs, plus a concussion that resulted in a brain hemorrhage. “My cognitive abilities were in steep decline after that hit,” Knoxville told Howard Stern on Jan. 25. “The bull hit was the worst hit I’ve ever taken from a bull or maybe period. I remember taking some tests. The neurosurgeon said, ‘Do you have trouble paying attention right now?’ I said, ‘Yeah, why?’ He goes, ‘Because you scored a 17 on [your attention].’ That’s out of 100.”
“I had to go under all these type of treatments, this transcranial magnetic stimulation, which they buzz your head with these magnets for about 30 minutes at a time for like, oh god, I would say 10 to 12 treatments over a series of two months and it’s supposed to help with depression and help with my cognitive skills. It was a tough one to come back from. I was trying to edit the movie at the time, but I couldn’t sit still.
“I did slip into a little bit of a depression with this last concussion. That hasn’t happened before,” Knoxville continued. “My brain was just playing tricks on me. I got really depressed and over-focused on things. I did have to start medication for the first time in my life. It completely turned me around — that and doing therapy. It was a really hard recovery from this last injury, but I’m great now. I feel like I’m the healthiest I’ve ever been.