Former Gladiators star opens up on near-fatal injury during live show
Former Gladiators' star Diane Youdale, known as Jet on the iconic show, has revealed a terrifying moment when she thought she was going to die after a horrific accident during a live performance.
Speaking on the People Are Deep YouTube channel, the game show star, who just celebrated her 55th birthday earlier this week (February 13), opened up about her near-death experience while performing a complex manoeuvre at a live Gladiators event at Wembley Stadium in 1996.
Recalling the harrowing moments that followed, Diane, who was 26 at the time, said: "I was sort of scraped off on one of the gurneys and taken off in an ambulance, and as the ambulance was approaching the hospital, I remember thinking I'm okay I can move my hands."
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Despite initially feeling okay after the incident, she confessed that her injuries could have been fatal. The star added: "So what I'd done is, I'd compressioned cervically, the spinal cord bruising, but no break and had it been a break consultant had said it would have been a hangman break so you'd either be paralysed or dead."
While Jet was no stranger to injuries on the show, she explained that it was during her recovery at home that she made the difficult decision to leave the show: "I just suddenly thought I can't go back into that arena," reports the Daily Express.
Away from her stint on the hit show, Diane had also tried her hand at a music career at 24 and even managed to break into the UK charts with her debut single 'I Don't Know', followed by her album 'No Covers'. Post-Gladiators, she co-hosted the final series of children's programme, Finders Keepers.
She also made a brief comeback to the game show that made her famous, working as a reporter on Sky's reboot of Gladiators in 2008. Diane has since trained to become a psychotherapist.
While Diane was a fan-favourite during the first instalment of the show in the 90's, the beloved game show hit screens again early last year when it began to air on BBC One with the father and son presenting team, Bradley and Barney Walsh.
