Comedian Jorma Taccone has recently recounted a harrowing near-fatal accident involving a 20-foot ladder earlier this summer. The 48-year-old former "Saturday Night Live" cast member shared the chilling tale on the latest episode of "The Lonely Island & Seth Meyers Podcast," released on Tuesday, September 2.
Taccone, who is one-third of the iconic comedy trio The Lonely Island alongside Andy Samberg, revealed that the incident left him with a shattered pelvis and a detached sacrum.
He began recounting the events leading to the fall by describing his summer project: "I had this idea to build... there's a barn with a massive white wall at the back. I thought, 'This is perfect; we can create a breathtaking mural here.'"
Taccone continued, "I was painting this barn, and as a finishing touch, I decided to hang lights around the eve to highlight its beauty. This was the day my daughter was turning 5."
However, disaster struck when Taccone borrowed a "woefully unstable" ladder with "wobbly" legs from a neighbor and ascended to the 20-foot mark. "As I was perched up there, the ladder started to give way beneath me," he recounted, his voice still trembling with the memory. "In that fleeting moment, my life flashed before my eyes. I thought, 'Oh no, I've got to get off this ladder.' I had just enough time to realize, 'I'm going to die.'"
"As I plummeted, I glanced down at the yard and thought, 'This is going to hurt a lot.' I landed directly on my buttocks, bearing the brunt of the impact. I let out a series of piercing screams and curses," he added.
"And to think, it was my daughter's fifth birthday party. It couldn't have been a less appropriate way to start the day," Taccone lamented. "I shouted, 'Call an ambulance!'"
At the hospital, the "I'm on a Boat" crooner learned that he had "severely shattered my left pelvis" and that his sacrum had detached from his spine. The pelvis, as explained by the Cleveland Clinic, is the bony structure that encompasses the hips, buttocks, and pubic area, while the sacrum is a triangular bone situated at the base of the spine.
"A disc is damaged now, and they need to remove it," Taccone explained. "Scheduling the surgery took some time because they planned to address both the front and back parts."
Regarding the aftermath of the devastating fall, the director of "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping" confirmed that he would require up to six months to fully recover and walk again. "The silver lining is that all the doctors have assured me, 'You'll be walking within three to six months, and you'll be back to doing all the things you love,'" he told Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Seth Meyers. "Only time will tell."
"I'll just have to push through the pain," Taccone concluded, his voice resolute. "It's definitely no laughing matter."
