Britain's Got Talent star Jonathan Goodwin paralysed after stunt goes wrong

Lucy Watson reports for ITV News.

An escapologist who appeared on Britain's Got Talent has been left paralysed by a stunt that went wrong during a rehearsal on America's Got Talent: Extreme.

It has been revealed that Jonathan Goodwin, from Pembrokeshire, was crushed between two suspended cars after they had caught fire.

His fiancée, actress Amanda Abbington, who has appeared in BBC's Sherlock, also revealed that 42-year-old Goodwin suffered a catalogue of injuries, including a severed spinal cord and third-degree burns.

He was supposed to escape a straight jacket while suspended upside down 30 feet in the air in between two cars.

However, he became crushed between them as they caught fire.

Speaking on Jay Rayner's Out To Lunch podcast, Abbington said: "He fell 30 feet and lost a kidney, broke both shoulder blades, shattered both legs.

"Third degree burns, broke his spine and severed his spinal cord and nearly died. And then on the operating table he nearly died again."

Goodwin now uses a wheelchair and Abbington, 48, added that her fiancé remains "positive and upbeat and so strong".

"His courage and his strength is something that I just aspire to be like," she added.

"He's just incredible, honestly, like so happy, just like a very happy, positive human being, just liquid sunshine. He's amazing."

As well as featuring on Simon Cowell's talent shows, Goodwin has also featured on the Discovery Channel's One Way Out and How Not to Become Shark Bait as well as Channel 4's Balls of Steel and the Jonathan Ross Show.

In 2012 he was given his own stunt series 'The Incredible Mr Goodwin' on UKTV's Watch channel where his stunts included wearing a straitjacket and dangling from a blazing rope over the River Thames in London.

In a post on social media he said he had "dodged the worst" but had a "long road to recovery" ahead of him.