YouTube star David Dobrik has come under fire once again, this time for a failed stunt that left his friend and fellow YouTuber Jeff Wittek severely injured.
The accident was detailed in Wittek’s ongoing YouTube documentary series “Don’t Try This at Home,” which captures his rise to prominence on the platform and his ongoing relationship with Dobrik and the so-called “Vlog Squad.” The second episode, released Wednesday, centers on the events leading up to two incidents last year that left Wittek hospitalized and in need of facial reconstructive surgery.
One incident involved a skydiving injury Wittek sustained while preparing for a video collaboration with Dobrik. The other, which took place in June 2020 and had not previously been discussed publicly, involved a failed stunt in which Dobrik attempted to swing Wittek around on a rope suspended from an excavator sitting in a shallow lake.
“Yeah, I didn’t know I was going to go that fast. So I grabbed the f—ing rope and I tried to make a goddamn funny video for people,” Wittek said in the video. “This was where I made a mistake. I forgot that the biggest f—ing idiot I know was driving it.”
Wittek’s video did not include footage of the accident itself, but other clips circulating on social media appear to show Wittek colliding with the side of the excavator and landing in the water.
“The whole side of his face is just open,” a person at the scene said in Wittek’s video.
Viewers have taken to social media to call out Dobrik, the leader of the Vlog Squad, for his involvement in the stunt. Dobrik himself has not addressed the incident outside of his involvement in Wittek’s series, the next episode of which will detail the extent of Wittek’s injuries.
The new video comes after weeks of fallout for Dobrik amid allegations of sexual assault and other inappropriate behavior by members of the Vlog Squad.