Riteish Deshmukh got a lucky break that saved his life — not once but twice — in South Africa while shooting for the high-paced action thriller, Cash, directed by Anubhav Sinha.

Narrating the first incident, Riteish says, “It was an action sequence which had Esha (Deol) driving her car at high speeds and I had to jump off from the boot of her convertible with another car following behind. When they said, ‘action!’

Esha moved on cue but I wasn’t ready so I fell behind with my jacket getting caught on the rod behind the radio transmissions. Esha didn’t know and kept driving on with me hanging on. I tried to keep my hand from going under the tyre.”

He must have been hurt. “Well yes, when they stopped the car two people had to lift me up as I couldn’t move. There were scratches all over my body and my hand and chest had a huge bruise on it because of the wire.

Fortunately, there was a doctor and paramedic on the sets all the time and they gave me painkillers. However, we had to shoot the same sequence on another day as it was too painful for me to resume shooting. When I think of it, I am fortunate to be alive.”

The next incident happened the next day when Riteish was learning to street luge on skateboards. “There was a trainer for each one of us – a skateboarder for me, a kite surfer for Zayed, a car driver for Esha and a swimmer for Dia.

Every day we would leave our villas, train for three hours and come home. Street luging required secluded, sloping roads for training. On that day, there were some cars coming down from the opposite side and to avoid them I swerved in the opposite direction but there were pebbles there.

Unable to avoid them at that high speed, I went over them. The board toppled over and my head hit the ground.”

Riteish says that though his head bled a bit there were no concussions or any damage to his face. “I was scared that I would bruise my face badly at that speed, but no lasting damage was done.”

In Cash, he plays a “smart thief” called Lucky. Have these incidents put him off action scenes or stunts? “No way! I wanted to do a film like Cash as it’s an action film. Action is really exciting. These things happen and as long as you take care of safety rules, they don’t matter.

I want to do bigger and better stunts now. The adrenalin drives you much more than the pain! I love Lucky’s philosophy. He says ‘mere fees mein jitna zero zyaada hota hai utna mein kum sawaal karta hoon’.”