TV’s catfish hunter won’t be running this marathon at breakneck speed.
The fact that Nev Schulman will participate in the TCS New York City Marathon on Nov. 3 at all is miraculous — he fractured his neck just three months ago in a bike accident, and doctors feared he might not walk again.
“I just remember the look on every nurse and doctor’s face as they came into the room for the first time … expecting me to be some version of paralyzed, and being so shocked, and almost confused,” Schulman, 40, told The Post.
“They’d all come in and do the same tests every few hours. They would touch my feet and they’d say, ‘Do you feel this?’ . . . I became very aware over the course of that first 48 hours [in the ICU] how close I came to not potentially walking out of the hospital — or walking — ever again.”
The host of MTV’s “Catfish,” was riding his bike in the Hamptons Aug. 5 to pick up his son from camp, when he attempted to merge into a lane of traffic and slammed into a truck.
“And somehow in the moments that I looked over my shoulder . . . traffic had come to a stop and I actually rear ended a truck, flew over my handlebars and hit my head into the back of this truck,” he explained.
Doctors at Southampton Hospital discovered he had a fracture in his neck, and he was rushed to Stony Brook Hospital for surgery.
The Upper East Side native was in the midst of training for a half marathon and asked his doctor when he could run again.
“He’s like, ‘You’re going to be in a neck brace for at least six weeks . . . I wouldn’t expect to run any marathons this year for sure,’” said Schulman, who now lives in Williamsburg.
The TV star, who ran last year’s marathon as a guide for blind runner Francesco Magisano, resigned himself to missing out on the five-borough, 26.2-mile race this year. Until Francesco texted him.
“I said, ‘Yeah, I’m feeling pretty s—ty . . . I wouldn’t count on me to be your guide,’” Schulman recalled.
“And his response was, ‘Nev, I want to run it with you. I don’t care how fast or slow we go. If you feel like there’s a chance you might be able to do it, I’ll wait.’”
His six-week follow-up X-ray showed his neck had healed.
Schulman immediately jogged his first mile — and on Sunday, he will run his eighth NYC marathon tethered to Francesco, an Upper West Sider who is also the director of the NYC chapter of Achilles International, an organization that assists disabled athletes.
“For fully blind athletes, they have two guides, one who is tethered to them directly and then one who essentially runs in front to look out for obstacles, to help move people if necessary, and perhaps, most importantly, to get water and Gatorade from the stations,” explained Schulman, who will switch off with his friend, Tom Flaherty, since guides split the two responsibilities.
Before he agreed to participate, Schulman, a dad of three, talked with his doctor.
“I said, ‘Am I cleared to run,’” he recalled. “And I actually recorded a video of him saying it so I could show my wife, because I knew she wouldn’t believe me.”
