In 2015, Ryan Reynolds made news when he was struck by a paparazzo’s car in a Vancouver parking garage. The actor escaped that incident largely unscathed, but many years earlier, he wasn’t so lucky when he found himself on the wrong end of an automobile. In an interview with CTV News (via the New York Daily News), Reynolds recalled that as a teenager, he suffered serious injuries after being struck by a drunk driver. While partying with friends in Vancouver, Reynolds realized that he was too inebriated to drive — the legal drinking age in Canada is 18 or 19, depending on the province — and decided to walk home. Sadly, another driver hadn’t made the same responsible choice as Reynolds and ran into him, resulting in extensive broken bones and other injuries.
“Broke every bone in my left side,” he said, adding that he was also unconscious for three days. When he awoke, Reynolds found his dad at his bedside, though in a sorry state. “I guess I had been heaving in my unconscious,” he explained. “And nothing says love like painting someone with three-day-old Gin Rummies. Just soaked the man head to toe in my vomit.”
Though in hindsight Reynolds was able to joke about the accident, the actual collision appears to have taken a far greater toll on him. He capped the CTV interview by noting, “Since then, I’ve been a rickety, broken mess.”
