How Ronda Rousey Nearly Lost a Finger Filming ‘9-1-1’

When Ronda Rousey starred on Fox’s 9-1-1 series, the crew had to call a team of real first responders. The WWE Superstar almost lost a finger while filming the Fox series in 2019. Rousey had a recurring role in Season 3, appearing in five episodes as firefighter Lena Bosko. Rousey explained how the injury happened in graphic detail during an interview for her YouTube channel.

In her first scene, all Rousey had to do was lift a boat’s door and say a few lines. Unfortunately, she was not tall enough to get the door all the way up to a resting position. “I kind of had to give it a little bit of an oomph, like a push, and it either stalled at the top and came back down or it bounced back and came down,” Rousey said in the video, reports Sports Illustrated. “But it was staying up enough for me to turn my back on it. I stepped out and the boat door slammed down. I thought I just jammed my nail … I was thinking ‘Ouch, f—. Don’t be a p—, just finish the scene.’ So I finished the scene.”

After filming wrapped, Rousey took a moment to look at her injury and it was not pretty. “I looked down and I was like, ‘Oh,’” Rousey recalled. “I remember turning towards the director and being like, ‘You guys aren’t going to like this, but my finger is no longer attached to my finger.’” The next day, Rousey was back to work, but some of her scenes had to be rewritten to accommodate the injury. She also had several stunts planned that had to be completely cut, unlike her finger.

In the video, Rousey took her cast off to show how close she was to having half her ring finger completely cut off. Two tendons were almost severed, and she suffered a broken bone, crushed nerve, and the tip of her finger was fractured. “She was a little over-exuberant and slammed the door on her finger,” a source told TMZ, adding that Rousey never complained and tried to finish the scene in character.

Rousey shared a photo on Instagram from the hospital, showing her finger dangling from her hand before she received stitches. “So the word is out I nearly lost my finger shooting [9-1-1],” Rousey wrote. “Freak accident, first take of the day a boat door fell on my hand, I thought I just jammed my fingers so I finished the take before looking (I know it sounds crazy, but I’m used to live audiences and never showing pain unless I’m supposed to) after a break in the action I told our director the situation and was rushed via ambulance to the hospital where they promptly reattached my bone and tendon with a plate and screws.”

“I returned to filming the next day and finished my scenes before returning home to recover,” Rousey explained. “Modern medicine amazes me, I already had 50% range of motion back in 3 days.”

9-1-1 was created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuck, and Tim Minear. The series was canceled after six seasons, but ABC picked it up and will air Season 7 in the fall of 2023. The spin-off, 9-1-1: Lone Star, will continue airing on Fox. Both shows, including Rousey’s Season 3 arc on 9-1-1, are streaming on Hulu.