What you may or may not know is that Kaley is also passionate about equestrian sports and horse jumping, and she’s competed in the sport too.
In 2010, Kaley suffered an accident at a Los Angeles ranch in which a horse fell on her leg, requiring emergency surgery and several missed tapings of The Big Bang Theory‘s fourth season.
As it turns out, Kaley’s injury was pretty serious — and it almost required her to get her leg completely amputated.
The show’s creator, Chuck Lorre, described the accident as “the darkest, most frightening time” in the show’s 12-year run. “Kaley could have lost her leg. It was a series of miracles that allowed us to get through that and for her to come out the other end of that healthy.”
Kaley explained that, as she went into surgery following the accident, she was unsure as to whether she would lose her leg.
“Before I went into surgery, they made me sign something that said, ‘We don’t know until we get in there and see this leg, and it could come out that you don’t have it anymore,'” she recalled. “That wasn’t the case, obviously, but I had to sign something that said, ‘OK, you can.'”
Luckily, the surgery went well, and even though doctors believed that it would take a while for Kaley to be up and running again, she was able to walk with assistance after a week — but the experience still had a profound effect on her.
“It’s still too much for me to go into, and it sounded way worse than it was,” she explained. “And of course it was spiraling and everyone was freaking out, which I get. It scared people.”
Chuck also suggests that the doctor who performed Kaley’s surgery — and saved her leg — also “saved” The Big Bang Theory, suggesting that the show would’ve been in serious jeopardy if things had gone differently.
