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DIY SOS GBH
Nick Knowles reveals horror TV accidents after almost losing his TONGUE in Mongolia and helicopter crash on Mt Etna
DAREDEVIL Nick Knowles says he has to insure himself to fly helicopters on his adventure shows.
The DIY SOS presenter and travel documentary maker says he pays for his own cover for emergency rescue by chopper.
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He has risked it all climbing towers, flying gyrocopters through storms and getting stuck in a crevice in the Grand Canyon after putting on four-stone in lockdown.
Nick said: “You can’t get insurance because a lot of the programming I’m doing, they are such big adventures.
“I actually now pay an enormous amount to ensure I have helicopter extraction cover instead.”
The danger of hammering his thumb in more than two decades of DIY SOS pales alongside his documentary scrapes.
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He said: “They’ve all been dangerous. Climbing out on 200ft towers, swimming in the Arctic circle, jumping in the ice — I love all that stuff. It makes you feel alive.
“My shoulders, neck, back, knees, everything, is knackered because of accidents — but I consider them a badge of honour.”
Most recently, Nick, 61, risked his career in Mongolia, where he met a shaman blowtorching a knife until it was white hot.
He said: “And then he said to me, ‘You’ve got to lick it to get rid of the bad spirits’. I was like… ‘If I burn my tongue badly enough then that’s the end of my career, because I can’t speak’. And so I licked it.”
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The dad-of-four, engaged to Katie Dadzie, 34, added: “Every time I get into something hairy, I think, ‘I’ve come all the way here and I’m supposed to be having a go’, so you have to have a go no matter how terrifying it is.”
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