Coronation Street star Antony Cotton has insisted he will perform on Dancing On Ice this weekend despite fracturing two ribs in a fall during training.
The soap actor said he was unable to breathe properly after his skating partner Brandee Malto fell on him and “crushed” him, leading to him being taken to hospital as a precaution.
Cotton told ITV’s This Morning: “I want to carry on. I’ve broken (ribs) front and back, it was a mishap. It was nobody’s fault, there were two of us in this tango.
“We basically fell backward and Brandee landed on top of me and crushed me.”
Ice breaking news: Antony's injured! Find out if he'll make Sunday's #DancingOnIce here ➡ https://t.co/Ao6TpoHo2T pic.twitter.com/5VIZkCFl0c
— Dancing On Ice (@dancingonice) February 1, 2018
He said he has “never in all my career phoned in sick” and he is determined to take to the ice for Sunday’s show.
Professional skater Malto said she was “so scared” when the incident happened on Wednesday.
She added: “I really thought I’d killed him, because he couldn’t breathe, he was just lying on the ice, he was telling me to get help.
“I was happy he could take a breath but I didn’t want to leave him.”
Cotton, 42, said: “It happened very quickly. I knew that we were going down, the only thing I thought was that I didn’t want to bang my head because we were going to go down with some force.
“So I kind of cradled round Brandee so that my head was up, which meant I went bang on my back, and Brandee landed on top of me. My ribs crushed right at the back and at the front.
“I knew it was bad, but the worst part was I couldn’t breathe, I physically couldn’t breathe and so, because there was nobody else around, as I was snatching breaths I was doing it audibly because I thought, if I stop breathing they’ll notice I’m not making sound any more.”
Cotton, who has played Sean Tully in Corrie for nearly 15 years, said he refuses to back down from the competition, although it will take around four to six weeks to heal.
He also said that, despite ITV saying he was “resting” ahead of this weekend’s show, he was straight back to work the next day and does not want a “sympathy vote” from viewers.
Dancing On Ice, which has returned after a four-year hiatus, has been known for some nasty injuries over the years, including in 2012 when actress Jennifer Ellison took a blow to the head with the blade of a skate, and when the late Keith Chegwin fell and broke his shoulder and cracked his ribs in 2011.
Before the current series started, cricketer Monty Panesar was forced to pull out after breaking his ankle in training.