“The volume of water hit me so hard it tore my hands loose from the rope and I fell. And when I fell I lit on the track and my head fell right across the rail. Right here” — he pointed to the back of his neck. “I had a headache for a few hours, I remember. Mildred Harris’s house was nearby, and she gave me a couple of stiff drinks — this was during Prohibition, when you couldn’t just stop any place for a drink.
“I woke up the next morning, my head was clear, and I never stopped working. But years later, I’m down at the Soldiers’ Home in Sawtelle. They won’t release you out of that until they’ve X-rayed everything you’ve got. If you’ve got dandruff, they’ll keep you there. The doctor calls me in and says, ‘When did you break your neck?’
“I said I never broke my neck. He says, ‘Look at this X-ray. The callus has grown over the crack, next to the top vertebra.’ I asked him how long ago he thought it happened. ‘It could be somewhere between ten and fifteen years ago.’ I started thinking back — it’s that damn fall on that track. Well, I never knew it. Never stopped working. That’s luck. No nerve pinched or anything. That’s a fluke. That could have ruined you… there are so many things in the vertebrae that could cause you trouble!”
— Buster Keaton, quoted in Kevin Brownlow’s The Parade’s Gone By
Reason no. 1521 that Buster Keaton was a complete nutcase badass.
(via fuckyeahbusterkeaton)