“And the door came down and hit me on my left hip because I was turned to my right. Speaking about the injury to talk-show host Jonathan Ross in December, Ford said the hydraulics involved in the Millennium Falcon had considerably developed since 1977 when the doors were controlled with a pulley operated by hand.įord said: “Now we had lots of money and technology and so they built a fucking great hydraulic door which closed at light speed and somebody said, ‘Ooh I wonder what this is?’ The fact that it didn’t was because an emergency stop was activated,” he said.Ī health and safety executive described the weight of the Millennium Falcon door as comparable to that of a small car. Ford was then airlifted to hospital in Oxford.Īndrew Marshall, prosecuting, said the breaches had caused a “risk of death” and that if the emergency stop had not been pressed in time, it could have been a very different outcome for Ford. However, Milton Keynes magistrates court heard how the hydraulic spaceship door was operated by another person and that as the actor passed beneath it, he was hit hard in the pelvis and pinned to the floor.
The 71-year-old actor sustained severe injuries from the accident, including a broken left leg, after he walked on to the set not believing it to be live.
The company responsible, Foodles Production, pleaded guilty to two breaches under health and safety legislation.