‘Jackass’ Star Ryan Dunn’s Deadly Last Drive
After a serious injury, Ryan Dunn cut contact with his Jackass costars for years until production began on Jackass 3D.
Ryan Dunn was arguably the wildest cast member of the hard-to-watch TV stunt show Jackass. His crew even awarded him the nickname “Random Hero” because he was willing to perform stunts that, for one reason or another, his costars passed on.
Dunn had stared death in the face before. While filming Jackass Number Two in 2006, Dunn sustained an injury that put him in the hospital with a potentially fatal blood clot.
Shortly after, he contracted Lyme disease and entered a period of severe depression. He cut contact with his Jackass cast mates for nearly four years, finally reconnecting with them when they began production on the film Jackass 3D in 2010.
But death finally caught up to him on June 19, 2011. Indeed, Ryan Dunn died when he crashed his car into a guardrail going over 100 miles per hour.
Dunn had always lived life in the fast lane — literally. He received 23 driving citations, 11 of which were for speeding. And on that tragic night, Dunn was out partying near West Goshen Township in Pennsylvania with a friend he’d met while filming Jackass Number Two, Zachary Hartwell.
Hartwell, an Iraq War veteran, had been a production assistant on the second Jackass film and quickly formed a connection with Dunn. The 30-year-old had been recently married the night he and Dunn went out partying.
Sources who attended the party said that Ryan Dunn had downed as many as 11 drinks between 10:30 p.m. and 2:21 a.m. that night. Despite this, Ryan Dunn didn’t seem all that drunk.
Dunn and Hartwell left the party in the early hours of the morning on June 20, 2011. Dunn was driving.
Speeding at 130 miles per hour, Dunn hit a guardrail. The car broke through it, veering off-road and into the woods, sustaining so much damage that it burst into flames upon impact.
When the wreckage was found, Ryan Dunn’s body had been so badly burned that he could only be identified by his hair and tattoos. His blood alcohol content was .196, more than twice the legal limit in Pennsylvania.
He was 34 years old.
“I’ve never lost anybody that I cared about. It’s my best friend,” fellow Jackass star Bam Margera said. “He was the happiest person ever, the smartest guy. He had so much talent, and he had so many things going for him. This is not right, not right.”
