Tippi Hedren, best known for her part in Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic film The Birds , just got paid $1.5 million for a stage accident which happened back in 2006.
Ironically, the gallon of water which fell on Hedren’s head “accumulated on a plastic tarp under the sound stage’s plywood roof, possibly because a bird’s nest was blocking a condensation tube in the air conditioning system,” the court documents noted .
Hedren said that the downpour of all that water caused debilitating headaches to return: “It felt like part of the ceiling had dropped on my head,” she testified.
Tippi Hedren alleged that she had previously suffered from headaches 20 years ago. Just a couple of months before the accident, she underwent spinal fusion surgery which Hedren said had been a “miracle” cure for her.
But straight after the accident with the water, the headaches returned, and she went through a variety of therapies to try and alleviate the pain – such as acupuncture, nerve block injections, and even Botox.
Sadly, none of the above helped much, and Hedren was left to suffer the consequences of the accident – although, perhaps the $1,483,708 she got awarded by the court may have helped alleviate the pain just a bit.
From that massive amount of money, $170,000 was earmarked for future medical expenses and a further $440,308 for loss of earnings. The judge in the case, William S. Dato, said that there was definitely a connection between the accident and the headaches.
The judge said that Tippi Hedren “Suffered daily from severe headaches that limit her ability to take acting work and will require her to undergo invasive rhizotomy treatments to obtain relief from the pain.”
