- January 21, 2026
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Horizon West’s Robert Herrick didn’t think twice before springing into action as a 400-plus pound boulder bounced its way down the stage during Disney Hollywood Studio’s Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular.
He planted himself in front of the boulder, hoping his body would make just enough of an impact to stop the boulder from reaching the audience.
Herrick, a 36-year veteran of the Indiana Jones show, made a difference.
The boulder didn’t reach the audience, but he was left with a gash in his head and fractures in his C6 and C7 vertebrae.
Since that Dec. 30, 2025, show that has since become a viral video, Herrick has been referred to as a modern-day Indiana Jones and a local hero.
But that makes Herrick uncomfortable.
To him, the real heroes are the nurses, doctors and neurosurgeon who treated him at Orlando Regional Medical Center. They’re the first responders running toward overturned cars and burning buildings. They’re the people feeding the homeless. They’re the parents working two jobs to support their family.
“That’s a hero,” he said. “The difference is they don’t have 2,000 people with cell phones taping it. That’s the only difference.”
Herrick considers himself simply “an actor who does stunts.”
Herrick’s passion for acting began at a young age.
Since he was a child, he always was finding ways to perform — whether it was grabbing a plastic banana from the fruit bowl in the living room and using it as a microphone to sing Dean Martin or Elvis Presley or being 6 years old in a production wearing a Styrofoam hat with a band on it and a bright colored vest.
“(Acting) was in my blood from a very early age,” Herrick said. “You either get bit by that bug or you don’t, and it bit me.”
His acting classes at the University of South Florida were his safe place, a place where he could draw on his emotions without judgement when doing scene work.
He realized his affinity for the adrenaline high that came with performing in front of a live audience and feeling the energy of knowing the moment a performance has impacted someone.
“I knew that was my passion, but I was trying to reconcile what my parents wanted me to do,” Herrick said. “There was a lot of pressure coming out of Jesuit High School to be a doctor or a lawyer. I just loved acting and thought it was a nice hobby.”
But what started as a hobby shifted into a lifelong career after Herrick received a call from a friend from acting class asking if he would be interested in auditioning for a new stunt show at Disney: Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular.
At 24 years old, Herrick went to audition for the role of the German mechanic, an at least 6-foot-4-inch man who beats up Indiana Jones around the airplane in the third scene of the show and spins a big scimitar.
Herrick stood tall at 6 foot, 6 inches and has bushy brown hair.
The show’s director, Glenn Randall, saw something special in him and hired him.
It was time to tell his parents he wasn’t going to be a doctor or lawyer. As the fifth of six children, Herrick said he was the one destined to graduate college coming out of Jesuit High, from which his father and grandfather graduated. Although his parents were disappointed at first, they came around after seeing the joy their son had while performing. It’s a lesson of following your dreams that Herrick shares now with his 8-, 10- and 11-year-old daughters.
“I can sincerely and honestly say I feel like I have never worked a day in my life,” he said.
After being hired for the Indiana Jones stunt show, Herrick started learning how to do stunts and stage fight.
“I’ve never called myself a stunt man,” he said. “I’m an actor (who) knows stunts, because I work with some really great stunt people.
When he started in the show in July 1989, Herrick recalled feeling “scared to death” during his first performance. His hands would not stop sweating, due to the heat and the nerves, as he hid below the carpet mount where he would spring up so Indiana Jones could shoot him. He was dressed in a black turban and veil that covered all of him except his eyes, and he had to spin a scimitar perfectly in line with the music and sound effects. All he could think was, Don’t drop the sword. Don’t drop the sword.
Although he didn’t drop the sword in that performance, he admitted he has, something each person who has played the role has done one time or another.
Herrick thought he would stay with the show at most for a year.
Little did he know for the next 36 years, he would be returning to the show multiple times after trying to make it big in Los Angeles but realizing the City of Angels wasn’t for him. He also enjoyed 15-month stint in Osaka, Japan, working for Universal Studios Japan.
Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular, or as he fondly calls it Epic, became his home away from home.
At least two months before his contract was ending every year, he would become nervous, wondering if Disney had found someone younger or better to take his role. But year after year for 36 years, he was offered another contract.
“I’m so blessed with really good people, that’s what brings me back,” he said. “Disney’s given me an unbelievable opportunity to live my passion and create magic for guests every day. Who wouldn’t want to do that?”
Herrick said Disney’s top priority is safety, and the boulder has launched thousands of times without incident.
The show was on its 6 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 30, and Herrick was supposed to switch from playing the director to the assistant director role, but something told him to not swap microphone packs with his castmate and remain in the director role.
The director is the one who sits in the tech booth during the boulder scene while the assistant director is not part of the scene.
Everything was going to plan as he’s watched time and time again in his years with the show.
Suddenly, after the planned burst of smoke and the boulder is launched through the skull doors, he saw it come out and hit the upstage wall of the temple.
As it went downstage, Herrick watched it teeter and bounce at least 7 feet in the air.
“When I came out of that tech booth, my only thought was, ‘That boulder cannot make it to the audience,’” he said. “If it’s going to take me to put a little resistance into it so it doesn’t do that, that’s what I’m going to do.”
It was a 400-plus pound boulder versus a 235-pound, 6-foot-6-inch man.
When the boulder hit Herrick, it propelled him back against the 3-foot wall that separates the audience from the stage. He had a gash in his head that required five staples to close.
As he felt the blood running down his right cheek, he could hear the audience gasping. All he could think next was to get off the stage so he wasn’t bleeding in front of the guests.
People were confused. Was what they saw part of the show? No.
Herrick later saw a video of a dad filming his daughter’s reaction to the show. He heard the dad trying to reassure his daughter that everything was OK and encouraged those around him to clap for Herrick. The man said, “That guy saved our lives,” referring to Herrick.
Herrick attributed the confusion to the Disney magic, allowing people to get lost in the fantasy of the Indiana Jones show, but in this moment, fantasy clashed with reality.
So much could have been different that night. What if Herrick switched roles? What would have happened if he didn’t stand his ground in front of the boulder?
Herrick believes it was a nudge from God that led him to maintain his role as director, and therefore, have his 36 years of experience to lean on during the incident, knowing every nook and cranny of the stage and all the scenes by heart.
He later found out in Orlando Regional Medical Center’s trauma center that he fractured his C6 and C7 vertebrae.
He initially was rushed to Orlando Health — Horizon West Hospital, but upon seeing the outlook on his tests and scans, he was transported to the trauma unit at ORMC.
Herrick thinks it’s instinctual for humans to want to protect one another, even strangers. He believes the incident was God giving him an opportunity to protect others and demonstrate that there’s inherent goodness in people.
“I’m just a messenger for that, and I’m showing people that the world we live in now with the cynicism, the division, the vitriol and the meanness at high levels in this country can’t be the norm,” he said. “We’re all capable of protecting (one another), and it comes down to love.”
The Indiana Jones production team has become family to Herrick. Over the past nearly four decades, Herrick and the cast and crew have been there for each other through the good and bad: marriages, births, loss, health issues and more.
His time with the show reminds him of a quote from Andy Bernard in “The Office,” “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days, before you’ve actually left them.”
“If you spend time on that stage, there is something really special about it,” Herrick said. “The longevity of the show has made it a really special place, so I’m not looking back at 1995 saying I was in the good old times when I was 28 years old. I’m in the good old times right now. I’m in the good old times with my wife and my kids and still being able to perform a show that was supposed to last five years.”
The Epic family showed its support for Herrick as he recovered from the injuries.
A few of the original 1989 Cast Members knew Herrick’s pain kept him from sleeping, so they bought a reclining chair that now sits in his living room so he could sleep better.
Strangers have shown their support by providing a meal train for the family, sending gift cards and writing messages of love and support to Herrick.
Herrick’s wife, Kim, said she’s grateful to everyone, especially as it’s an example to their girls how when you show up for people, they’ll return the favor.
“We always say, ‘Just be a good human,’ and it’s really just showing us there’s so much love still out there in the world,” she said.
Although his recovery is progressing, Herrick is itching to get back to the stage and his passion of acting. It could be another six weeks before he can work full-time as he needs to wear a neck brace.
“I want to go back to the show I love,” he said. “I miss my Epic family, and I miss performing. I miss making magic.”
He misses the interactions with guests who have an emotional connection with the show such as Elliot Perry, who celebrated his 14th birthday on stage with Herrick last July. Herrick met Perry, who has Brittle Bone syndrome and has had 60 operations in his lifetime, when Perry was 3 years old and was chosen to play a junior director in the show. Herrick has watched the boy grow up, start the Elliot Perry Foundation and continually come back to the show over the years.
“Every day I get a chance to meet someone different and talk to them, and I love that,” he said. “It is such a gift to do that show and perform in front of those people every day. I miss it.”
