Bam Margera, Ryan Dunn’s co-star from Jackass, was overcome with emotion and broke down in tears while visiting the location where his best friend tragically lost his life in a horrific car crash at 180 kph.
As he spoke to a local news outlet, an inconsolable Bam struggled to articulate his profound sense of loss.
“It was the worst phone call I ever got in my life waking up to that,” the 31-year-old sobbed.
Margera, who was in Arizona when the crash occurred, visited the Philadelphia crash site on Tuesday evening. He was visibly distraught, swaying back and forth in anguish at the guardrail that the vehicle had breached.
“I’ve never lost anybody that I cared about. It’s my best friend,” he revealed to WTXF, the local TV station.
“He was the happiest person ever, the smartest guy. He had so much talent and countless opportunities. This is not right, not right,” he lamented.
In response to being asked how he would cope with this tragedy, Bam responded, “I can’t…I can’t.”
In a statement sent via email, Eric Dunn, Ryan’s brother, expressed that their family was ‘devastated.’
“We are thankful for the support from Ryan’s fans during this difficult period and appreciate your thoughts and prayers,” he stated.
“Ryan will be deeply missed, yet he will forever reside in our hearts.”
The emotional interview with Bam aired as shocking new details about the tragic circumstances surrounding Dunn’s fatal car accident emerged.
According to police reports, the 34-year-old was driving at approximately 180 kph in an 80 kph zone when his Porsche 911 veered off the road at around 2:30 am on Monday morning in Pennsylvania, resulting in the instant fatalities of both him and his passenger, Zachery Hartwell.
West Goshen Police Chief Michael Carroll, involved in the reconstruction of the accident, described it as the most catastrophic crash he had ever encountered.
Mr. Carroll reported that the Porsche, capable of reaching speeds of up to 300 kph, was traveling at an extremely high velocity when it struck a guardrail, careened into the woods, and subsequently caught fire.
“I’ve never witnessed a car so utterly mangled in an automobile accident before it ignited,” he stated.
“The vehicle literally disintegrated. It was staggering, and I’ve responded to many fatal accident scenes. This is undoubtedly the worst I’ve witnessed.”
A photo surfaced depicting Dunn in high spirits while enjoying time at a bar shortly before the crash, accompanied by friends, including Hartwell, with both reportedly consuming alcohol.
The Chester County Coroner has made public the autopsy findings for both individuals, revealing that the crash was so violent that it’s indeterminable whether they died from the initial impact or the fire that ensued.
The cause of death for both was determined to be blunt force trauma and thermal injury.
Officials indicated that the results of the toxicology tests for both men, which would clarify the impact of alcohol in the crash, are expected to be released within four to six weeks.
Since the incident, someIt has been suggested that Dunn could have been over the alcohol limit during the time of the accident.
April Margera, Bam’s mother, insists that he wouldn’t drive while intoxicated.
Zachery Hartwell, 30, the passenger involved in the tragic incident, had been drinking alongside Ryan and a third unidentified individual.
Although Zachery was not part of the Jackass crew, he served as a production assistant for the second Jackass film.
He also received credits as a ‘car stunt driver’ in Bam Margera’s movie, Minghags, and was reported to be a recently married veteran of the Iraq war.
Dunn was a familiar face on MTV through shows like Jackass and Viva La Bam, as well as in the three theatrical adaptations. He also hosted his own MTV show, Homewrecker, and was the presenter of Proving Ground on the G4 network.
Moreover, Dunn starred in the upcoming film Living Will, where his character is described on the film’s website as a ‘party bum slacker who returns from the dead as a mischievous and perverted ghost.’
Originally born in Ohio, Dunn relocated to Pennsylvania at the age of 15, where he met Bam Margera during his first day of school, according to a biography website.
Along with Margera, Christopher Raab (known as Raab Himself), and Brandon DiCamillo, they started creating videos featuring skateboarding and stunts under the name CKY, which stands for ‘Camp Kill Yourself.’
At the time, Dunn was a welder and worked at a petrol station when Johnny Knoxville, a friend of Margera’s from the skateboarding scene, proposed incorporating their videos into the series Jackass, which gained immense popularity on MTV from 2000 to 2002.
One of his most notorious stunts took place in 2002’s Jackass: The Movie, where he inserted a toy car into his rectum and went to a hospital emergency room, fabricating a story about experiencing unusual pain after passing out at a fraternity party. Dunn’s X-ray from that incident later became a popular T-shirt design among Jackass fans.
In a stunt from 2000, he jumped into a tank at a sewage treatment facility while donning flippers, a mask, and a snorkel.
by Robbo Green
