... info gathered from a slew of interviews and articles over the past year ... only as accurate as they were.

Orlando Bloom has spoken repeatedly in interviews about his life-changing experience when he fell from a window four years ago when he was 21. Of course, people ASK about it all the time ... it's still going in current (1-03) magazines. Here's the story ...

While a student at Guildhall, Orlando was at a friend's house in Notting Hill after having a Sunday lunch ("no excessive drinking" he says) and was trying to reach a roof terrace to kick in a warped door by climbing out a window that was about a meter and a half away ... his foot hit the guttering instead of the roof, it gave way, and he fell three stories down, just missed a rusty railing. He was unconscious briefly, couldn't be rescued by helicopter because they couldn't get the chopper in to where he was, was finally carried out by EMT's with a "crane". He lay helplessly in hospital for several days, in terrible pain and occasionally sedated to unconsciousness while they did neuroscans and then told him he might never walk again, which must have been absolutely devastating and terrifying for him. "Four days of having to deal with the possibility of that as a reality" shook him to the core, as it would any of us, and altered his view of life. Then doctors did six hours of back surgery, piecing him together with bolts and plates, leaving a long scar over the incision they worked in.
The operation restored his ability to move his legs and he was able to walk out of the hospital on crutches in 12 days. He wore a back brace for months ... there was a question of whether he'd be able to finish his schooling at Guildhall, but he did ... and now he has gone on to glory and fame as an action hero, of all things.

Miraculous ... yes, he may have had his miracle here. And I'm very glad he did, for we never would have known his sweet sunny spirit or seen his handsome face if the gods had not set him back upright and shoved him into his future as a storyteller on a worldwide stage. For that I am very thankful, just as he is. His humility and respect for the experience are part of what makes us care about him so much, methinks.