New York ? Adventurer Bear Grylls was surprised by a huge crocodile in Australia, navigated a shark-infested channel off Papua New Guinea and lost the ability to breathe while in free-fall at 30,000 feet during upcoming new episodes of Discovery’s “Man vs. Wild.”

Yet it was a camera that almost did him in.

Grylls needed to be airlifted from a mountainside in the Canadian Rockies with a badly damaged leg after a camera on a sled slammed into him, the most heart-stopping moment in seven new episodes of the series that starts today at 8 p.m. CDT.

The enthusiastic survivalist had glissaded down a mountain, zipping down the snow on his backside, and stopped himself suddenly by using an ice pick. The camera following him didn’t stop, missing Grylls’ head and shoulder by inches before hitting him in the leg. It didn’t break a bone, but came awfully close.

His first thought was, “Wow, I’m lucky.”

Then the tears came. It had been a stressful stretch of filming, and the emotion of it all came rushing out. The tough guy is only so tough.

“It was a wake-up call,” Grylls said. “You’ve just got to get it right every time. You live with danger a lot and you can get blase, and just can’t do that.”