No injury in Chan's career was more catastrophic than the accident on the set of Armour of God in 1986. Filming near Zagreb, Yugoslavia, Chan was scheduled to leap from a castle wall onto a tree branch below. The initial take was clean, but Chan insisted on a second pass to sharpen the comedic timing.
The tree branch snapped under his weight. Chan plummeted twelve meters directly onto jagged limestone boulders below. His head hit the rock surface first, driving a broken piece of his skull directly into his brain tissue. Blood poured from his ears as crew members rushed to his side.
Emergency brain surgery performed by a leading European neurosurgeon saved his life. Surgeons extracted bone fragments, repaired the lacerated dura, and plugged the cranial hole with a medical plastic implant. The trauma left Chan with permanent, partial hearing loss in his right ear and a slight indentation in his skull. Less than four months later, he returned to the set to finish shooting.
