The One Show: Nick Knowles on his fear of heights

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DIY SOS presenter Nick Knowles has revealed that he was put in a precarious position while filming his new show for Channel 5. The star admitted that he put on four stone over lockdown. This put him in a compromising position filming Into the Grand Canyon with Nick Knowles when he found himself stuck in the world-famous landmark.

“You have to go through ‘horizontal chimneys’ which are for real cavers, who are like whippets – they’re tiny, skinny people,” he said during an appearance on Radio X.

“But my director was like, ‘Go through here, and there’s a cave on the other side which we can talk in’.

“But halfway along, I was like, ‘I can’t do this, this is just too much’. I had palpitations, it was seriously terrifying.

“There was a point where I was wedged, I couldn’t get my shoulders through and I was wedged. My heart started to go and I was, ‘Breath, breath, breath’.

He was eventually freed thanks to the assistance of a caver, who, he revealed, then mocked him.

“The caver said to me, ‘So how are you feeling about your life choices?’” he recalled.

“It’s all very well when you see Bear Grylls go off and do these things.

“It’s much more interesting if you get a bloke off the sofa and say, ‘Crawl through these crevices’ or, ‘Walk off the side of this cliff’,” he said.

In 2020 the DIY SOS star spoke openly about his weight gain, explaining he had “indulged more” during lockdown, while also not being able to go to the gym as they were all closed for months.

By the time he was filming this show, he was 18 stone.

However, his weight didn’t deter him from making the most of it despite the terrifying experience of being trapped.

In the show, viewers will see him undertake a series of eye-watering challenges.

At the start of his adventure, he ziplines a third of a mile along the mile-deep Grand Canyon.

Later he delves 21 stories below the surface into the Grand Canyon caves where finds the emergency rations stored for civil defence during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

He also braves the Skywalk, a semi-circular platform which juts out thousands of feet above the Canyon floor.

Despite an attack of Vertigo he bravely soldiers on determined to explore the Canyon from every vantage point.

Six million tourists from all over the world visit the canyon each year and around 900 people have died there.

On average there are 12 fatalities per year from heat stroke, falls and other medical emergencies.

Surprisingly the leading cause of death is aeroplane and helicopter crashes.

In 1956, 128 people died when two commercial airliners collided mid-air above the canyon.

Into The Grand Canyon with Nick Knowles is on Channel 5 tonight at 9pm.

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