Bear Grylls Antarctica Injury Update: “I Severely Crushed My Shoulder”

December 13, 2008

Bear Gryll’s injury in Antarctica seems to have been worse than expected. After being medically evacuated from Antarctica and arriving in the U.K., Bear had a chance to finally have doctors take a look at his very painful injuries.

Bear Gryll’s right shoulder and clavicle were both smashed in a kite-skiing accident. The doctors say that Bear could be out of action for 10 weeks, then may have to suffer through a bout of reconstructive surgery. You would think that this would not sit to well with Discovery Channel’s Man vs. Wild host, but on a recent blog post, Bear seemed to be upbeat about the whole ordeal:

Well, it is fair to say that Antarctica has been more of a mission than I ever anticipated.

But through it all, together, we achieved all we set out to do as a team and I am so proud of how everyone performed: from hanging bivouacs, to jetskiing in -25o, powered by bio-ethanol, from scaling an unclimbed peak to flying electric powered paragliders over the vast ice continent.

He is happy for the team and what they have been able to accomplish in Antarctica, but now the real test will begin. Being an adventurer at heart, it will be interesting to see if Bear Grylls will be able to take the needed time off to recuperate.

I have been following this story with some interest over the past few days. You can find previous updates HERE and HERE, or you can visit the Moose Droppings blog who has been doing a nice job of following along with the news. Bear Gryll’s own blog has a nice photo of his recent shoulder x-ray-the first update he has posted since November 11th. I am guessing that with his recent injury, he may be more willing to blog about his recovery and other matters. It is worth checking out from time to time.