Tv-vært Claus Elming

In 2017, Danish TV host Claus Elming was cycling with friends near Hornbæk when he rode into the back wheel of his friend, Rasmus Dagsgaard. He was catapulted off the bike and landed directly on a 15-20 centimeter high curb. "The only thing that doesn't break is the back," he says. He broke six ribs, two of them in two places, his collarbone in two places, and his shoulder blade. He also punctured a lung and suffered a heart attack. The accident required 23 days of hospitalization, two operations, and left him with 14 screws in his chest. He was off the bike for 312 days. "I would not have been alive today if I didn't have a helmet on," he says. The helmet cracked, and he suffered a brain rupture but no permanent head injuries.

The slow unraveling after the fall

The physical recovery was only part of the story. Before the accident, Elming had already struggled with stress and had seen a psychologist. The fall re-introduced that stress into his body, this time accompanied by anxiety. The following season of Vild med dans, which he had hosted for 12 years, became a grueling ordeal. He developed a physical reaction before going live: he would throw up. His coping mechanism was to keep a pocketful of small wine gums. "It dulled the nerves," he explains. He would take one during a broadcast when the red light was off him, using the thick texture to calm himself down.