I flew aeroplanes, parachuted, walked on my own across the Himalayas - you name it; if it was dangerous, I did it.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I'd say the most dangerous thing I've ever done is probably bungee jumping in Thailand.
I shot down some German planes and I got shot down myself, crashing in a burst of flames and crawling out, getting rescued by brave soldiers.
When I was 23, I went to Alaska by myself into the glaciers of the coast range and climbed a mountain by myself. It was incredibly reckless, incredibly stupid. But I was lucky. And I survived, and I came back to tell my story.
As a child, I was airlifted out of the path of the Nazis. Unfortunately, I was parachuted into the path of the Japanese, but then I was airlifted again to India.
I was a pilot and flying hang gliders, paragliders, aerobatics airplanes, and then I discovered skydiving. Free fall. Free. With nothing around you, just a parachute on your back. And you go down. But you don't feel like you're going down. Total freedom.
I've jumped out of an airplane 34 times. I've dove 212 feet under water. I've done a lot of things that defied death.
I had to jump out of a plane! The shoot was for an editorial for a magazine; and it called for skydiving.
I fell from the sky. I'm a parachutist, and I missed my mark.
But I've never really done anything that implies any kind of danger. I wouldn't skydive, I wouldn't deep sea dive, I wouldn't parachute. I think you're really just rolling the dice. Who packed your chute the night before?
On my job I end up jumping out of planes. Last week I got in an 18-wheeler and drove down a runway onto a skid track. The week before that they put me in a car and sunk me to the bottom of a lake to see if I could escape without an oxygen tank.