Ride again? Who knows says Eddie

9^th April 1999

Cheshunt & Waltham Mercury

DAREDEVIL rider Eddie Kidd has left his options open as to whether he will ever perform his death-defying stunts again.

In Snapshot, a mini-documentary for BBC1 due to be broadcast last night, 38-year-old Mr Kidd, who is due to move back to Cheshunt once fully fit, speaks candidly about the crash three years ago in which he suffered brain damage.

And despite a tearful admission to the cameras: “I’m never going to jump again,” Mr Kidd later added: “But who knows?”

SUFFERED CONCUSSION

After completing a jump at Long Marston Airfield in Warwickshire he fell from a 20ft bank and suffered concussion to the brain, although he bravely admitted this was due in part to a drink and drugs binge the night before.

Since then, Mr Kidd has been convalescing in Warwickshire and Hemel Hempstead and has regained his powers of speech and movement.

Talking about the crash, he said: “There were 20-odd thousand people there. I said: ‘I can’t let the people down. I’ve got to do the jump.’ But as I landed I knocked myself out. The rest I don’t know what happened.

“I was a mug. I did the jump without the safety procedures in place. I was up the night before doing a lot of drugs and drinking. The biggest stunt in my life is walking and getting my co-ordination back together.”

But his mother Marjorie said the turning point was when paranormalist Uri Geller sent Mr Kidd a tape, after which he began to talk for the first time since the crash.

Mr Kidd’s sister Sarah Simpson, of High Road, Turnford, added: “Things happen in life and you’ve just got to dust yourself down and pick yourself up and get on with it – and that’s exactly what we’ve all done but purely because Eddie’s done that.”