'Black-ish' actress Jenifer Lewis relives harrowing near-death experience on African safari
Black-ish and Sister Act actress Jenifer Lewis has relived the harrowing moment she plummeted into a ravine in the middle of the night during an African holiday.
Watch the video above.
Lewis, 67, had just arrived at her hotel before a safari through the Serengeti, in Tanzania, and went out on her balcony hoping to use the pool.
It was "pitch black" outside and she claims she hadn't been given a tour of the lodge, so she didn't see where the deck dropped off suddenly until it was too late.
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Jenifer Lewis opens up about her scary injury in a new ABC America TV special. ABC America
"I'm walking, and all of a sudden I had fallen 10 feet into a dry ravine full of boulders, and stones, and sharp rocks," she reveals in a new ABC America TV special, which just previewed on Good Morning America.
"Nothing would move. So I laid there, I said, 'Move your body, baby. Come on, Jenny. Move your body' ... it was hard to even take a big breath to scream," Lewis said.
Lying in the dark, Lewis tried to call for help and eventually one of her friends heard her, but not before the actress "heard a lion roar" nearby.
She was so scared for her life that she even began to think about what the headlines would say if she died there in the Serengeti.
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'The king ate the queen: Pieces of Jenifer Lewis' body being flown back to the States' was her top prediction.
Fortunately, it never came to that.
Help arrived and Lewis was airlifted to a hospital in Nairobi, where she underwent a mammoth 10-hour surgery and spent six days in intensive care.
She was on heavy pain medication when she returned home to the US and couldn't walk or even perform simple tasks like putting on socks.
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Taraji P. Henson with Jenifer Lewis. Getty
Three months after the accident she came off the drugs and focused on rehabilitation, which took months of work and intense physical therapy.
Lewis was injured in November 2022 but chose to keep her near-death experience and recovery private until she was feeling well again.
When GMA reporter Robin Roberts asked her why, the actress said: "I didn't want y'all to know I had fallen until I could show you how I got back up."
