Motorcycle Lake Jump Goes Terribly Wrong For Crazy Mike Gaboff

Crazy Mike Gaboff lived up to his moniker when he broke his neck, collarbone, lower back, pelvis, ribs, sternum and both of his arms, suffered two collapsed lungs and second-degree burns when the motorcycle stunt he was taking on went horribly, horribly wrong.

Photo courtest of Mike Gaboff

Gaboff made it back to New Jersey – following a long hospital visit in California, and he’s now undergoing physical therapy every day to put himself back in shape. The 25-year-old stuntman was critically injured after the motorcycle stunt he was undertaking as part of  a movie trailer went south and brought an end to his dream of making it big in Hollywood. Gaboff launched himself at speed from a six-story ramp in an attempt to span a Californian lake during the stunt. Sadly, he  overshot his expected landing area in the water and came down on terra firma.

‘It’s a struggle for me, but so was graduating high school, and I did that, so I can do this,’ Gaboff wrote on his Facebook page.

His mother says that her son’s helmet prevented him from suffering traumatic brain injury and that, while he’s not paralyzed, he has a long way to go.

“He is very positive and determined to get better,” she said. “That’s important because you need to be positive in this situation. It’s what he loved to do. What upset me more was to find out from his friends afterward that, maybe, there had been some apprehension about the whole thing on his part, too. This was his big chance. He wanted to work in Hollywood, and he felt like he couldn’t turn it down.”

If you’re a little squeamish about such things, you should probably skip watching this video of Gaboff’s stunt: