BBC presenter rushed to hospital with collapsed lung after jumping into a lake and left fighting for breath
BBC presenter Chemmy Alcott has been rushed to hospital after suffering a collapsed lung after jumping into a lake.
The Ski Sunday presenter, 44, posted a clip of her jumping off a five metre platform into Lake Annecy in the French Alps.
But things went very wrong when the star landed badly and was rushed to hospital as she struggled to breathe due to a “collapsed lung”.
She said: “Most people badly time a front flip off a five metre platform and get winded. I apparently don’t do things by halves, collapsed lung, chest drain and a very expensive lesson in rotation.”
Chemmy captioned the clip: “Well… that escalated quickly. Turns out 5 metres is quite a long way to discover you’ve got the rotation wrong.
“One badly timed front flip. One very hard landing. One collapsed lung. One chest drain. And a few more hospital overnights than were on the holiday itinerary…
“I absolutely LOVED Annecy… but I’m not entirely sure it loved me back.”
The video also showed photos of Chemmy in a hospital bed attached to wires.
She then shared another snap of her receiving treatment, with a tube sticking out of the side of her chest.
Chemmy’s followers were quick to offer her kind words of support.
One wrote: “Oh my God!! Get well soon.”
A second said: “It’s crazy because the fall in the video doesn’t look harmful.”
A third commented: “Oh my God! Get well soon, we do live SO vicariously through your antics!!”
In February, Chemmy revealed she had quit skiing on doctor’s orders.
The Team GB downhill skier — who had broken her leg three times in four years — was told another fracture would result in her leg being amputated, and she was plunged into retirement.
Chemmy has found a new career as a TV presenter and hosted BBC One’s coverage of the Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina earlier this year.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun, Chemmy said: “I have a very healthy relationship with fear.
“So many times, I’ve stared down a mountain, ready to throw myself down and knowing there’s a chance it could go badly.
“It’s kind of the same with TV. When we’re going live on TV and you hear the countdown, there are butterflies in the tummy.
“You get those same butterflies in the starting gate, ready to go racing at 80mph with loads of G-force down a mountain.
“It’s live. Anything can go wrong or you can have the ride of your life.“
Chemmy has come a long way since she competed in her fourth and final Olympics 12 years ago in Sochi.
A year previous she had broken her leg for the third time in four years, but was determined to line up for her country.
She had only skied competitively for four minutes between the injury and getting to the start gate.
Chemmy finished 19th — less than two seconds off the winning time — a result she said at the time was like “taking gold” given her ordeal.
But a sobering conversation with a surgeon a few weeks later changed her life forever. She said: “When I first broke my leg in 2010, I had so many surgeries.
“My bones actually broke through my ski boot. They had to put a screw through it, which meant it would never properly heal. My leg will always be broken.
“But I loved the sport so I wanted to continue. However, my surgeon told me some things I needed to hear.
“He sat me down and said that if I kept going competitively and crashed, he would have to amputate my leg from the knee down, because I don’t have any bone any more. It shocked me.
“He said, ‘Look, this is what you’re risking. I let you do it to get to the Olympics, but this is what you’re risking every time you experience that G-force and go 80mph’.”
