While this is far from being Efron’s first health scare, it’s almost certainly his most embarrassing yet…
While A-list heartthrob Zac Efron may have been on the receiving end of some health scares before — his on-screen body transformations are a prime example, given the hidden dangers of his Iron Claw bulk and the apparently ravaging mental health effects of his Baywatch shred — this latest incident may be one of the scariest yet.
Dive Gone Wrong
Zac Efron, the mega-famous and world-renowned star of High School Musical and more recently The Iron Claw, got himself into quite a situation on his latest visit to the infamous party island of Ibiza. During a stunt that sounds like something straight out of your favourite frat house, a dive gone wrong at one of the villas on the Spanish enclave, 36-year-old actor Efron was quickly rushed to the hospital and endured a short but decidedly sharp health scare.
Insiders said that the unexpected event came during an otherwise wholesome and risk-free weekend, with Efron suddenly enduring a stomach-full of chlorinated water when he dived into a pool at a villa where he was having a get-together with his friends. He had misjudged the depth, hit his chest on the bottom of the pool, and drew water into his lungs. A source said this to TMZ:
“Zac took in a large amount of water and showed signs of distress almost immediately.”
Response & Recovery
Security personnel at the villa quickly pulled Efron from the pool and whisked him away to a nearby medical facility. “He was briefly dazed and, of course, very shaken,” another insider revealed. To be on the safe side, medical officials administered X-rays on Efron’s chest to check that his lungs were clear of water. Luckily, he was pronounced fit-as-a-fiddle and released from hospital the following morning.
Efron’s reps swiftly released a statement, emphasising that the hospitalisation was purely precautionary. “Zac was found inside the swimming pool by two villa staff who acted promptly to help him,” his rep said. The actor himself posted on Instagram not long after, sharing a photo of him exercising at a resort and letting fans know that he was “happy and healthy” before thanking them for their well-wishes.
Efron’s History Of Accidents
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time Efron has endured a pretty grim health scare. In 2013, the actor memorably shattered his jaw after slipping on a pair of socks at home, which resulted in a brutal smash on the chin from a granite fountain. Efron would later detail the long and painful aftermath of the accident in an interview with Men’s Health Magazine:
“I lost consciousness and woke up with my chin bone hanging off my face.”
The 2013 accident then sparked rumours of plastic surgery, especially as people speculated about a significant shift in the way the lower half of his face looked. Efron explained that his face masseter muscles had increased in size as a compensatory mechanism from the injury. “The masseters just grew. They just got really, really big,” he said, ruling out plastic surgery reports.
But it seems Efron continues to bounce back from it all. A near-death experience in Ibiza is quite a humbling moment and could potentially have been far worse were it not for the speed of medical intervention. Nevertheless, he promises to be gracing all our screens again very soon.
