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Friday, 11 May 2007

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Orlando Bloom: I was nearly paralysed

Doctors warned star he'd never walk again after fall

After breaking his back at 17, doctors told Orlando Bloom there was a chance he'd be permanently paralysed.

It was in his second year at the National Youth Theatre in London that a prank went wrong and he fell off a drainpipe.

'I did my whole third year at drama school in a back brace, pretty much,' he recalls. 'It was an interesting and humble experience.

'It forced me to take stock and to appreciate how lucky we are to be alive and to have our health.'

But the 30-year-old actor refused to accept he'd never walk again.

'There was part of me that simply wouldn't allow myself to believe that I would be paralysed forever,' he tells Weekend magazine.

'It was what the doctors told me for the first four or five terrifying days.But I couldn't see that, and I wouldn't allow it to be my future.

'I was very fortunate because I had a great medical team. The way I was looked after was fantastic.'