Bob Slayer breaks neck crowd surfing

Stand-up comedian Bob Slayer is in a bit of pain after a crowd surfing stunt went wrong.

Whilst appearing at Download Festival, the comedian decided to crowd surf... in a wheelie bin. It didn't all go to plan, as he explains:

"So I am at Download Festival doing a crowd surf in a wheelie bin... I think I have mastered health and safety with my new exoskeleton... Alas I am dropped out of the bin onto my head... (Spiky Mike the Download Comedy Promoter tells me I should have known that Castle Donnington area bins are always emptied on Thursdays). The wheelie bin keeps on surfing and ends up back on the stage, as per the plan but I am laying in the mud with a mega winding... My gig ends a little short but someone nice prescribes Dr Jack Daniels and all is fine..."

"The next day I wake up in someone else's wet tent. I'm in a bunch of pain but that's nothing out the ordinary for a festival. I go back to London for Martin Soan's Pull The Other One Comedy Cabaret where I co-compere with Stephen Frost... When I wake up the next morning my neck is getting worse but I have to do a day's filming riding a tandem around Chelsea... This is when accident no 2 of the weekend happens...

"Early in the Random Tandem shoot I do a big collide with a pedestrian and dislocate my thumb. Now that really hurts and it keeps popping out again. Fortunately the cameraman is also a Mountain Rescue Man who has filmed with Bear Grylls. I am in safe hands. He straps me up and we complete the shoot... Then we have fish & chips followed by A&E. They X-ray my hand, the diagnosis is that it is a quite a bit knackered. I am plastered up. They ask about my neck, I tell them about the wheelie bin, more X-Rays and more bad news: I have cracked a vertebrae... Crikey! I now have a neck brace and a pot on my hand but fortunately I also have some lovely pain killers!"

Here's some footage of the wheelie bin incident:

Turns out Slayer is a bit accident prone, as he has previously suffered a broken back. "The last time I broke my back was in 1992 when a horse landed on me and crushed a couple of vertebra. That pretty much put an end to my time as a jockey... (well that and the fact that I ate all the pies). But this is going to end nothing - apart from maybe crowd surfing in wheelie bins - those days are behind me now..."

Slayer is gaining somewhat of a reputation for drunken antics, having been kicked out of an Australian comedy festival earlier this year due to his drink-fuelled antics. As a result, his new Edinburgh Fringe show is perhaps perfectly named: Bob Slayer Is A Very Naughty Boy will be on daily at 7pm at The Hive venue. He says: "I am sure this series of incidents may find their way into my show at Edinburgh", ominously adding "and various other events yet to happen!". The NHS might want to brace itself.