JOE WATTS - Starting Again

Stuntman Joe Watts has been on quite a journey since a life changing injury in 2019.

Here we look at the incident and Joe tells you more about himself - also there is a fundraising evening for the Essex and Hertfordshire Air Ambulance, wiho were responsible for getting Joe from the film studio to hospital safely and quickly.

Enjoy 

Fundraiser:

https://www.tickettailor.com/events/joecharityeventsforessexhertsairambulance/2015771

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hello, and welcome to this week's look at action and stunts on film and television. Each week I come on here or on YouTube and we explore the exciting world of the stunt professional. After all, this channel podcast has been set up to celebrate their feats and ability, which allow action cinema to progress year on year. But it's not all about the highs. Sometimes we have to look at the lows too. Back in 2019, stuntman Joe Watts was filming the ninth Fast and Furious instalment at Leavesden Studios in Hertfordshire. A fight was worked out and involved him being thrown over the shoulder of his opponent and over a twenty five-foot balcony to land in a heap at the bottom. He was wearing a wire harness, so his fall could be stopped as soon as he left the shot, and then a separate shot would be used for the landing. But unfortunately, the wire he was wearing malfunctioned, and he was thrown all the way to the ground, landing on his head. He sustained a fractured skull and a traumatic brain injury. He was airlifted to Royal London Hospital, where he was placed into an induced coma for five days. He then spent two and a half months in hospital, relearning how to speak and do all the basic skills we take for granted. Seven years later, Joe is still dealing with this injury. Apart from working with neuropsychologists, physiotherapists, and occupational therapists, he remembers the incredible work of the Essex and Hertfordshire Air Ambulance crew who got him and airlifted him to hospital in enough time for his treatment to begin. Air ambulance services are absolutely crucial to the safety and rehabilitation of those individuals who, like Joe, find themselves with life-changing injuries and a limited time in which to get to hospital. As Joe says himself, his life has changed dramatically since his accident, but he's determined to maximize his recovery. A recovery which took time and a great deal of self-belief. It would be easy for people presented with similar injuries to accept their fate and adapt to their new life. But Joe was a professional stuntman, and accepting his fate wasn't really an option. As a professional, he sought to make a difference, not only to himself, but to others, and aided by his wife Tilly, he's been able to get himself back to a place where he feels he's back in charge once again. He's a creator, a wonderful visual designer, and has developed a YouTube channel to post regular videos of support to those who are either in the same boat as him or could benefit from his experience about moving on. Here's Joe to tell you more.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Hey, I'm Joe Watts, and welcome to my new channel, Joe2x underscore official. Thank you for joining me. Let's kick off this first video by telling you a little bit about me, because you might not know who I am, and my story is less than average. Let's kick off by saying I've got a severe disability, one of the worst ones going, and you won't even be able to tell. I'm not in a wheelchair, I'm quite fortunate to be in that position. However, I've got a severe brain injury, which means that how my brain processes the world is very different from everyone else. That brain injury, I wasn't born with it. I got it at work. I got it in a fall at work actually, back in July 2019. I was working as a professional stunt man, traveling the world, working on Hollywood film sets and major TV series, and loving it. It was honestly the best job. It was so much fun. But I can't do it anymore. And the reason I speak in past tense about that is because back in July 2019 stunt went wrong whilst filming on a Hollywood film set and it resulted in me falling 25 feet around 8 meters onto my head on concrete. Gave me a gnarly little scar and put me on a completely different path through life. I have a severe brain injury. What does that even mean? I didn't know what it meant until I got one, but let me break it down for you. Your brain is building everything you understand of the world around you, it's building the memories and the past, it's building your fears and anxieties and the future, it's getting your body moving, it's getting you communicating and using the correct words at the right time and being appropriate, and your brain is basically building your reality of how you understand life. And when you damage it, your brain doesn't really know that it's damaged, so it still tries to perform as if you're the same person you were as you're the same person that you were before your accident or before your brain injury. Um so I woke up in a hospital and everybody else knew what would what had happened to me, but I didn't I didn't get it. So I have had to learn how to recover from an impossible injury which devastated my life and basically took away every ability that I had. I've had to relearn communication and like how I interact with the world. I've had to relearn how to communicate. Ah, I've said that. I've had to relearn how to control my emotions, I've had to relearn so much, and I also have a load of symptoms off the back of the brain injury, like getting distracted, which is why I've recorded so many versions of this first video. Getting distracted, I struggle with fatigue. That's actually the main one. I get tired all the time. I couldn't even work at the local supermarket full time, let alone the film industry, let alone being a stuntman and doing long hours of physical labour, like that it's impossible. So hopefully, content creating will provide me a kind of a different career and a different um outlook, different source of income, perhaps. Like, let's wait and see. My main goal of starting this channel is because like I I've heard from so many doctors and therapists and stuff that I smashed my recovery, but the way that I see it is that I do not want anybody else to have to go through anything that I've had to go through, like that would devastate me. So if I can get on camera and I can share tips of how I've got out the other side of the injury, um, tips on how to look after your brain or how to motivate yourself or how to decide on what dreams you want and then go and achieve them. Because I promise you, I don't think that me becoming this version of myself was possible, but now I'm here, uh, so I can prove to you that it is. I can teach you how to do that. I just want to be on camera, motivating you, allowing you uh the opportunity to believe in yourself and to really just be able to take life in your hands and just go for it. There's uh a lot of struggle in the world, a lot of anxiety and a lot of lot of misery. So I want to flip the script on that. I want to step forward and try and be as positively um inspiring as possible because we're all uh we're all struggling with something, your situation won't compare to mine, living with a brain injury and having to relearn everything. You you wouldn't even be able to comprehend the magnitude of that. However, the emotions that I've felt will probably be emotions that you're feeling too or have felt. So, in terms of that, like I'm looking forward to just reaching out and giving you a bit of a knowledge olive branch. Anytime that you're struggling, hopefully, I'm gonna have some videos out there that can help to bring you back to a good place and be able to process those thoughts. I hope that you'd be interested to join me for the next video, future videos. If you are, please feel free to like and subscribe this video. Uh like this video and subscribe to my channel. I'd love to uh just be able to walk with you and share a little bit of the story and the journey that I'm on at the moment. Hope you're well. Have a good day. Peace.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Regular fundraising takes place each year for the Air Ambulance Service, and this month, June 27th, at Epsom Race Course, between 7pm and 1am, will be a wonderful evening of entertainment, including a spectacular three-course meal, live band and a DJ, a raffle and an auction to support the life-saving charity. Tickets can be purchased through tickettailor.com, and the link is in the show notes. Thank you for listening, and until next time, it's bye for now.