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Man vs Wild star Bear Grylls injured while filming

By April MacIntyre Dec 7, 2008, 21:10 GMT

Discovery channel star explorer Bear Grylls was injured after an Antarctic fall.

Reports from the UK Daily Mail who were updated by Grylls' producers claim the explorer, an ex SAS man, "was in agony yesterday as he waited to be airlifted to hospital after breaking his shoulder on a 9,000ft mountain in Antarctica."

Grylls' trip was organized by White Desert, a UK-based luxury adventure travel company.  On Saturday Robyn Garratt, a spokesman for the firm told the Daily Mail: 'Bear Grylls is still on the ice.'

The accident happened as Grylls was preparing to spend the Friday night on an ice shelf.

Grylls waited until Saturday morning before he was taken by medivac to producers Antarctic basecamp.

The Mail claims that as of Satuday evening - over 36 hours after the accident happened - he was still at the basecamp because of wind conditions.

Grylls will be stabilzed in Cape Town then likely taken back to the UK for full medical treatment.

A spokesman for the former SAS soldier told the Mail: "He has broken his shoulder and is in a lot of pain.  He is calm and collected - but in pain.  It is par for the course for the sort of thing that Bear does - this was a dangerous trip."

His purpose in Antarctica was reportedly for a trip designed to improve the green credentials of bio-fuels.  His sponsor is the biofuel company Ethanol Ventures.

During his filming prior to the accident, Grylls blogged about his ordeal complaining of the strong winds.

According to the Mail, he wrote: 'We have  been  hampered by the strong winds today, which have stopped us getting into the high mountains.  The winds race from the South Pole outwards and when they race you really know about it.

'If the winds abate we will grab our opportunity and move in to the high mountains tomorrow.  If not we'll start this tricky procedure of getting the jetski and inflatable down to the water... the Russian scientists have got wind of everything that we are up to, which has apparently confirmed in their minds, that the Brits are mad: 'nobody takes a jetski to Antartica or tries to rest on a vertical ice edge!'.