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Daisy Kelliher from 'Below Deck Sailing Yacht' recalled the worst fall she's ever had on a boat, which occurred during her first season in yachting.
Published on April 25, 2022
3 min readLong before joining Below Deck Sailing Yacht, chief stew Daisy Kelliher experienced what she considers to be the worst injury of her career, which was so bad she couldn’t move or walk.
About 10 years ago, Kelliher was a green stew working on her first boat. She had been drinking and fell backward onto the bulkhead. Kelliher went to bed but when she woke up, she was unable to walk or even move. Terrified, the crew called a doctor, who examined Kelliher and determined she’d hit a muscle, which temporarily incapacitated her.
At the moment, the injury was terrifying. But Kelliher had a sense of humor about the incident because she said it also involved a hookup, and “granny panties.”
Daisy’s scary injury occurred below deck on a yacht
Kelliher recounted the incident. “The crew hatch, there was a ladder,” she described during the weekly Pita Party on Instagram. “And you stood over and you stood next to the bulkhead. But the ladder kept going down into the laundry area. But you stepped halfway into the crew area – it was a bit of a leap.” She added, “I was drunk but I wasn’t that drunk. I was tipsy.”
The crew had been out and she had been hooking up with a guy. Kelliher clarified they did not sleep together. “I was a bit tipsy and I think I missed the step and I fell back onto a bulkhead. I was so winded.”
The next day Daisy realized she couldn’t move
Kelliher went to bed and woke up with the terrifying feeling of being unable to move. “The next day, I was like, ‘I can’t move.’ And I was new on the boat. I told my first mate that I really don’t want to be dramatic but I can’t move. And I was so scared and got such a fright.”
She worried that she had broken her back. “I couldn’t walk,” she added. “So I got a doctor. And this is so embarrassing. Because I got into bed and I had been hooking up with this guy. And I was wearing granny panties and I put them on back to front.”
Kelliher laughed, “So I had the bum bit at the front, so they were all baggy. And I’m wearing a t-shirt and [the doctor] made me walk to see how serious it was. Like if I had broken my back or had a slipped disc. But I couldn’t walk. So I was bawling. Like crying like screaming and crying. And I’m wearing a t-shirt and my knickers were baggy in the front. And I’m like, ‘I’m so sorry about my underwear!'”
The injury is why she is super cautious on ‘Below Deck’
The doctor said Kelliher’s injury was probably one of the worst she’s seen from a fall like hers. Thankfully she recovered quickly. “I hit a muscle,” she said. “And the nerves around the muscle contracted to protect the muscle. So that was the tension I was feeling and why I couldn’t walk.”
“So luckily I didn’t cause permanent damage and I didn’t split the disc,” she added. But she wasn’t able to fully return to work for a while. “They got an extra stew in for a couple of months,” she recalled. Adding that it was the worst pain she’s ever felt.
“It was a really, really scary time,” she said. “That’s probably the worst injury I’ve ever had on a boat. That’s why I’m a granny walking over bulkheads, walking over hatches. Like I never say no to a hand climbing on the boat.”
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