Gladiators legend admits 'I could be dead' after suffering horrific injury (2025)

Diane (right) decided to end her time on Gladiators in 1996 after a near fatal injury (Image: Getty)

Former Gladiators' star Diane Youdale, who was known as Jet on the hit show, has shared the shocking moment that she feared she was going to die after a horrific inicident whilst filming a live performance.

During an interview on the People Are Deep YouTube channel, the TV star, who celebrated her 55th birthday on Thursday (February 13), opened up on her close call with death after coming into difficulty whilst trying to make a complicated manoevre during a live performance of Gladiators at Wembley Stadium in 1996.

Looking back on the tense moments that followed, Diane, who was 26 at the time, said: "I was sort of scraped off on one of the gurneys and taken off in an ambulance, and as the ambulance was approaching the hospital, I remember thinking I'm okay I can move my hands."

Diane Youdale sustained the injury at Wembley Stadium in 1996 (Image: SWNS)

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Despite saying that she felt okay shortly after the incident, she admitted that her injuries nearly had fatal consequences.

The star added: "So what I'd done is, I'd compressioned cervically, the spinal cord bruising, but no break and had it been a break consultant had said it would have been a hangman break so you'd either be paralysed or dead."

While Jet had been no stranger to the occasional injury on the show before, she explained how it was while she was continuing her recovery at home that she had to make the exceptionally tough call to end her time on the show: "I just suddenly thought I can't go back into that arena."

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Away from her time on the popular show, Diane attempted to pursue a career in the music industry aged 24 and even managed to enter the UK charts with her first single ' I Don't Know' before she later released her accomanying album 'No Covers'.

After her time on the Gladiators came to an end she co-hosted the final series of the children's programme, Finders Keepers, and since then she also made a brief return to the game show where she originally made her name, as she was a reporter on Sky's reprisal of the Gladiators in 2008. Diane has also since trained to become a psychotherapist.