Contestant Accidentally Shot in the Neck With Flaming Arrow on America’s Got Talent

Ryan Stock and AmberLynn Walker left the America’s Got Talent judges speechless on Tuesday night—but not in the way contestants usually aim for.

Stock warmed up by swallowing a sword and an arrow, then placed a tube down his throat with a target facing out. Walker, his fiancée, shot a flaming arrow from a crossbow at the target, where it was supposed to go through a tube before alighting with pyrotechnics. But the arrow missed, hitting Stock near the neck.

Stock was lucky that the arrow didn’t set him on fire or puncture his throat, and he said he was okay. But when the judges began to give feedback, Simon Cowell said, “Why are we judging this act? Amber just shot Ryan and he needs to go to a hospital now! I’m being serious.”

Despite narrowly avoiding mortal injury, and feeling “lucky but unlucky,” Stock says he’d like to try the stunt again. The cause of the mishap seems to have been not Walker’s aim, but a slightly broken notch on the arrow that caused it to veer off course. “The first thing we’re gonna do is get back on that and run it again so we’re not afraid of it,” Walker told Entertainment Tonight. “We’ll be posting footage of it working properly, that’s for sure,” Stock added.

Watch the stunt here, but be warned that it’s a bit disturbing:

[Entertainment Tonight]