Back in November, Jay Leno suffered “serious burns” and was hospitalized after a vehicle in his famous garage burst into flames. The former Tonight Show host dealt with extensive burns to his face, hands and chest, and underwent “high pressure oxygen therapy” while hospitalized. He’s been recuperating in the months since, but now we’ve just learned Leno got into a second accident last week in which he broke multiple bones. He was on his motorcycle at the time.
While the fire news was concerning enough the press got news of his accident and hospitalization rather quickly, Jay Leno managed to keep this second accident under wraps for more than a week.The comedian is expected to return to Las Vegas at the Encore Theater in the Wynn in March. Ahead of that stint, he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Thursday that technically he’s now recuperating from two accidents: the fire and a motorcycle crash.
It’s so funny you should say that. That was the first accident. OK? Then just last week, I got knocked off my motorcycle. So I’ve got a broken collarbone. I’ve got two broken ribs. I’ve got two cracked kneecaps.
Jay Leno owns a slew of vintage vehicles and he told the outlet he was out testing one –a 1940 Indian motorcycle. He said he was smelling gas, so he decided to stop. Unfortunately, he chose a parking lot that was not marked up correctly, realizing too late the owner had chosen to wire the lot in but had not attached "flags" or any sorts of markers to signal where the wire was located.
So I turned down a side street and cut through a parking lot, and unbeknownst to me, some guy had a wire strung across the parking lot but with no flag hanging from it. So, you know, I didn’t see it until it was too late. It just clotheslined me and, boom, knocked me off the bike.
It sounds like the sort of thing that would happen as a gimmick in a comedy movie or a gruesome end in a horror film, but honestly, it’s the type of accident that could have been far worse. While he's not lucky to have been flung off his bike, and a broken collarbone and ribs are no joke, his injuries could have been more extensive.
Meanwhile, you can’t keep Jay Leno down. After he was hospitalized over the fire situation, Leno joked a lot about the experience and even took some good-natured ribbing from Tim Allen. This time around, he’s full of good humor too, noting he kept these injuries on the down low so he wouldn’t garner comparisons to Harrison Ford and his plane crash.
You know, after getting burned up, you get that one for free. After that, you’re Harrison Ford, crashing airplanes. You just want to keep your head down (laughs).
Sure, he's joked about situations like these, but Leno actually seems to have a practical perspective on the matter, noting when a person works with their hands they are "going to have an accident at some point." He's just had more than one of those moments over the last few months.
Our thoughts go out to the comedian during his now (seemingly) prolonged recovery. Fingers crossed he's hit his accident quota for the year.
