David Dobrik is finally being sued over that horrific stunt that almost got his friend killed.
In case you haven’t heard of the incident, in 2020 Jeff Wittek, a member of the YouTube star’s infamous Vlog Squad, came inches — no, MILLIMETERS — from losing his life while performing a stunt conjured up by none other than David Dobrik. The crew put an excavator in a lake and swung members of the squad around while riding inner tubes and wakeboards.
Yeah… Just by the sound of that I think we can agree: no thanks, we’re good…
Jeff, however, agreed to be swung around in the air on the rope. The excavator was of course being operated by David himself — or as Jeff put it, “the biggest f**king idiot I know was driving.” The YouTuber immediately swung his friend far too fast so when he stopped, the poor guy came crashing down onto the steel crane.
Be warned, this angle isn’t graphic because it’s so far away — but it’s still painful to watch.
Not only did Jeff suffer a horrific incident, but it was fully at the hands of his friend — who over the months has not exactly shown much remorse.
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Jeff’s injuries are well-documented as he kept making videos. He revealed in his April 2021 docuseries titled Don’t Try This At Home that doctors explained to him that had his facial injury occurred 3 millimeters higher, his eye would have been “cut in half.” Conversely, if the impact was 3 millimeters on the opposite side, it probably would have killed him on the spot.
All that for some YouTube views??! He was right to title his series Don’t Try This At Home…
Two years later, Jeff is now suing David for $10 million in damages for “general negligence and intentional tort,” to cover a slew of things, including: lost wages, earning capacity, and hospital bills. Jeff’s report claimed that David was operating the excavator at “unsafe speeds” before abruptly slowing it down which resulted in Jeff’s collision with the machinery and his “myriad of injuries.” It’s going to be tough to argue. In the full video, you can see David radically increases the speed from the previous rider — almost like he was messing around, trying to prank his pal.
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Even with David’s obvious culpability, it took a long time to get here. Why didn’t he sue before? What Jeff said in a February video titled Dear David goes a long way to explaining his journey:
“I nearly died. I came an inch from death and an inch from going blind. I’ll have life-long brain injuries. I’m not trying to lecture people. It’s just an emotional thing. I had my face smashed in and the one thing I asked from him was to not blame me for it.”
Jeff confirmed on an episode of his podcast, Jeff FM, that he and David are no longer on speaking terms — claiming that David never even reached out to him after the incident! WOW.
He explained:
“I woke up from surgery. A day goes by, no text for him. Another day goes by, no text. I look at his Instagram because it’s the first one that always f**king pops up because the algorithm or whatever. It’s just him like, ‘Oh, I’m so happy with my life right now. My vlogs and everything,’ just promoting his vlog.”
The only thing keeping him from suing was the fact David was his friend. And when the YouTuber stopped acting like a friend, well…
What do you think of the brutal situation, Perezcious readers? Is Jeff entitled to $10 million?? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
[Images via Jeff Wittek & David Dobrik/Instagram]
