Reports that Bam Margera was hospitalized in December did not explain how close to death the “Jackass” star came. But now the daredevil tells the whole story in his own words. To usher in the new millennium in a big way, MTV debuted a show in October 2000 that remains as culturally relevant and hilarious as ever: “Jackass.”
If you’re somehow unfamiliar with the series, it featured a bunch of stuntmen and old friends pulling pranks on each other and attempting wild stunts. To say that it became a success would be an understatement. Some of the original stars of the show, including Johnny Knoxville and Steve-O, have remained in the public eye and have kept the “Jackass” legacy alive.
But that hasn’t been true for the entirety of the original team. On one side is Bam Margera, who has lived a rollercoaster life ever since the now-iconic MTV series first rose to prominence. Margera has found herself in some scary and rather nasty situations, including drama with some of her “Jackass” co-stars,
including Knoxville. Yet he managed to survive and live to tell the story of him all these years later. But Margera revealed that he recently came very close to death. On January 5, 2023, Margera went through the “Steve-O’s Wild Ride!” podcast to commemorate the end of his guardianship. However, before he could get to that, he had a scary story from the previous month to share with the listeners.
From the beginning, he shared the news of his own “death of him”. “I was basically pronounced dead on Elvis’s birthday, December 8th.” Margera didn’t realize it, but she had been dealing with an extreme case of COVID-19. He added that his body began to shut down and he had four seizures, each lasting between 10 and 20 minutes.
The fourth was so bad that he says he almost bit his tongue. Margera’s tongue swelled and he began to bleed. Margera then swallowed the blood, which, in turn, caused him to contract pneumonia. Worse still, on the way to the hospital, he suffered a fifth seizure.
With his swollen tongue, he couldn’t breathe. When he finally got to the hospital, he thought he’d only been there a few hours, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. Shortly after waking up, he recalled being told, “Dude, you’ve been here for almost a week. We tried to get the tube out, but you weren’t breathing on your own.” Fortunately, eight days after being admitted to the hospital, Margera made a full recovery and was released. The media picked up on the story almost immediately. Steve-O mentioned that after hearing about it on the news and seeing Margera on a fan, he assumed the worst was just around the corner. “I was just thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, this is it.'” While Margera was in the hospital, Steve-O joked that if her friend didn’t survive, it would be a big problem for her tour plans. .
Some fans loved the “Jackass”-style dark humor; others not. Steve-O made sure to clarify that Margera’s recovery was the top priority. Margera chimed in with a laugh and compared her new raspy voice, thanks to her breathing tube, to Steve-O’s. Margera doesn’t remember much of what happened to her before waking up in the hospital, and she says that she essentially passed out until she opened her eyes in the hospital bed. It’s safe to assume she didn’t miss much during her long stay at the hospital. As if the past few years haven’t proven it, COVID-19 is no joke and she is more than capable of killing at any moment.
