Video: Amateur cheats death after being flung around “like a rag doll” at top of 100ft mast

AN amateur sailor taking part in a round the world race broke his arm after being ‘swung like a rag doll’ at the top of the mast. Watch the incredible video.

Sydney sailor John Charles was flung around “like a rag doll” at the top of a towering mast as he battled to reattach a halyard — and came close to losing his life hundreds of miles from land during a round the world Clipper race, with the incident caught on camera during filming of a television series.

It turned out to be an extremely painful job, some 100 feet up in the air, with Charles breaking his arm — later requiring surgery and the insertion of a metal plate — and also needing a crewmate to sew up a gapping wound in his arm pit with 17 stitches, 10 days from the finish of the leg

“The arm pit tear was evidently just millimetres away from a major artery. It would have been all over,’’ said Charles, who is preparing to take part in the Sydney to Hobart race.

Charles said at one stage during the horrific ordeal during the London to Cape Town leg of the race he looked down and saw his arm at a 45 degree angle.

“I was up there for 48 minutes,’’ said Charles, who agreed to wear a Go Pro attached to a helmet to capture pictures for race officials.

His injuries forced him out of the second leg of the round the world race from Rio to Cape Town but he’s back now and preparing to race in the 71st Sydney to Hobart.

The Clipper race covers 40,000 nautical miles with 12 amateur sailors and their pro skippers contesting 14 different legs in the sturdy 70-foot boats.

The first episode of the new TV series about the event, Race of their Lives, will appear on Fox Sport 2 on Friday at 4pm.