Shark Tale
Y&R’s Larry Warton was once nicked up in a motorcycle wreck. Funny — so was his portrayer, David “Shark” Fralick.
“I was going too fast after I raced this guy, like an idiot,” recalled Fralick. “[Interstate] 405 heading south, if you take the Wilshire East exit, it does a hairpin turn. That’s where I lost it.”
When Fralick got crowded out on the road, he could have either made contact or swerve into the guardrail. He chose the latter, braking from 165 mph to 70 mph, and next thing he knew he was flying — without his bike. “It was like a little bowling alley about two and a half feet wide, [made] of jagged metal, broken signs, bottles and rocks and I went right down the middle,” he described. “There’s hundreds of skid marks there and they’ve replaced the railings. To be honest, I was blessed by guardian angels that just wrapped their wings around me. I had a T-shirt on, jeans and luckily a brain bucket — a full face helmet — and a backpack. The backpack is what kept me from lacerating my shoulders.”
“I went limp as a noodle. Close your eyes and breathe out, that’s the number one rule. If you’re awake and looking, you see stuff coming and put your arm out or tense up, but when you’re limp like a noodle or a drunk, you just go with the flow. That’s why I survived,” Fralick attested.
He suffered three broken fingers, a couple of cracked ribs, a few hip lacerations and a concussion. His recovery went pretty smoothly — so long as he didn’t laugh, cough or sneeze. “Someone gives you a big bear hug and you try to act like a tough guy [holding it in],” Fralick laughed. “‘How come you’re crying?’ ‘I love you…so much it hurts!'”
So the last time you saw Larry Warton in Genoa City, those nicks and cuts weren’t makeup; they were real. “I had all the abrasions from my real wreck, so Patty (Denney, makeup artist) didn’t have to touch me up much. She just accentuated it,” Fralick explained.
Not to be deterred from racing, Fralick’s eagerly talking about taking his dirt bike or his ski boat out for a spin. “I have no fear, period, except for the wrath of the ol’ man upstairs, God almighty,” Fralick asserts. “There’s a saying in the military, ‘Pain is fear leaving the body.’ You can get over it and become more accustomed to dealing with the pain because you’re not afraid.”
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