Crazy Mike Gaboff
Local stuntman suffers life-threatening injuries Stuntman Mike Gaboff was doing a stunt for the new “Knight Rider” film, and as you will see, it goes completely wrong. Mike is set on fire and is supposed to launch a ramp and land in the lake, but he ejects and completely misses the water. Mike sustained major life threatening injuries, but is in the hospital and expected to be okay after a long recovery.
Millstone resident Mike Gaboff, who was critically injured doing a stunt for a movie trailer five weeks ago, is shown in this recent family photo with his siblings (from left) Lindsey, Ryan and Jesse. A fundraiser to help the family with Mike’s medical expenses is planned for June 16. MILLSTONE — On a “Dr. Phil” TV show two years ago about the dangerous world of extreme stuntmen, Sharon Gaboff told her 23-year-old son, Mike, she feared he would be in a wheelchair by 30 if he didn’t stop performing risky stunts.
Turns out she was wrong about that. It happened when he was 25.
Six weeks ago, Mike was critically injured in California while performing a motorcycle stunt for Break Media that Sony Pictures intended to use in a movie trailer, Mrs. Gaboff said. The motorcycle was supposed to launch from a six-story ramp, pass “Ghost Rider” style through a fiery ring, then land in a lake below.
”The stunt went horribly wrong,” Mrs. Gaboff recounted Monday. “There was a miscalculation. He overshot the lake, and he landed hard — a six-story fall.”
Mike broke his neck, his collarbone, his lower back, his pelvis, his ribs, his sternum and both arms and also suffered two collapsed lungs and second-degree burns, Mrs. Gaboff said. Since the accident, he has had numerous surgeries and has progressed to the point where he can sit in a wheelchair for up to one hour a day.
Although the injuries are horrific and likely career ending, there is still reason for gratitude and optimism, Mrs. Gaboff said. The helmet Mike wore for the stunt protected him from traumatic brain injury, and despite his broken neck and back, he is not paralyzed and mostly likely will learn to walk again some day, she said.
”He is very positive and determined to get better,” Mrs. Gaboff said. “That’s important because you need to be positive in this situation.”
Nevertheless, Mike still is facing a long, painful recovery 2,375 miles away from his home and family in Millstone. His medical bills also are mounting so friends have stepped up to organize a series of fundraisers for the family.
Mrs. Gaboff said Mike does not qualify under workers compensation for medical benefits for his job-related injuries because he was hired to do the stunt as an “independent contractor” and was, therefore, not an employee of Break Media or Sony.
And since Mike is not a resident of California, he does not qualify for any of the health-care programs in that state for people with catastrophic injuries.
Mike’s parents have charged more than $10,000 to credit cards in the past few weeks, flying themselves and his siblings back and forth to California to be with Mike and oversee his medical care. Mrs. Gaboff, who is self-employed and can’t be away from her business for long stretches of time, just returned from visiting Mike in California on Monday night. Her husband, Alan, is still there.
Mrs. Gaboff said the family brought Mike KFC takeout chicken for a “Memorial Day picnic” in his room at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton, California, on her last visit. Mike cheerfully ate it, despite his longstanding aversion to fast food, because his weight has dropped to 110 pounds since the accident, and he knows he needs all the extra calories he can get, she said.
Although the worst is behind her, the stress of the past five weeks is evident in Mrs. Gaboff’s voice as she recalls the foreboding she felt the day of the stunt and calling Mike from the Little League field in Millstone to ask him not to do it.
”It was 11 a.m. here, which meant it was 8 a.m. there,” Mrs. Gaboff said. “He laughed at me and said, ‘what’s the matter with you?’ because I had woken him up. He said I had scared him by calling so early because he thought there was something wrong with his dad. He told me not to worry.”
Mike went ahead with the stunt as planned.
”It’s what he loved to do,” Mrs. Gaboff said. “What upset me more was to find out from his friends afterward that, maybe, there had been some apprehension about the whole thing on his part, too. But this was his big chance. He wanted to work in Hollywood, and he felt like he couldn’t turn it down.”
In the interview with Dr. Phil two years ago, Mike acknowledged the risks extreme stuntmen face, but said he “needed the adrenaline rush to live.”
”This is what makes me happy,” Mike said in the interview that still can be seen online on YouTube.
”There’s always going to be stunts that aren’t successful,” Mike told Dr. Phil.
The risk of career-ending injury just comes with the territory, he said.
”I’d rather get hurt doing something epic, you know, like jumping out of a helicopter, on fire, through rings, through glass . . .” Mike said.
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