Picture the scene: You're newly successful in your own specific niche and recognizable to a national audience. It's your 35th birthday, a time to celebrate the career you've spent a lifetime building, and it's finally paying off. You've gambled big on your dangerous profession, but now, with the world at your feet, it all seems worthwhile. But it's not your treacherous line of work you need to worry about tonight: It's your drink! 

Dan Haggerty, of TV's Grizzly Adams, played out this very scenario back in 1977. With movie fame not too far behind in the rearview mirror, Haggerty brought his fictional frontiersman character to the small screen. NBC, so impressed with the film's unexpected success, ordered The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams to series. While Ben the grizzly bear may've seemed like the most hazardous part of Haggerty's day, he may have let his guard down too soon one night that November.

According to an article in The Chicago Tribune (citing a wire from United Press International), Dan Haggerty suffered a pretty severe injury as a result of a celebratory mishap:

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"Haggerty was served a flaming drink while celebrating his birthday at a restaurant last week. Somebody jostled him, splashing burning alcohol on his beard, which went up in flames. He suffered first, second, and third degree burns of the face, neck, a hand, and forearm."

Wildlife, it seems, wasn't the most fearsome foe in Haggerty's year. Instead, what should've been a routine-enough (if rather showy) way to imbibe was soon a fiery nightmare. Luckily, Haggerty lived to tell the tale.

"Skin graft operations were performed on his face earlier this week at Sherman Oaks Hospital, where he is expected to be under treatment for at least a month. Haggert was "doing fine and up walking around," Dr. Richard Grossman, a burn specialist, said Thursday."