He did what???” These words (or others along these lines) have frequently echoed across the annals of rock 'n' roll history, but rarely louder than the time Ozzy Osbourne decided that jumping behind the wheel of an all-terrain-vehicle seemed like a good idea.

That’s essentially what transpired on Dec. 8, 2003, as news outlets from CNN to ATV Monthly reported, when the 55-year-old legend embarked on what he thought was going to be a casual joyride across the grounds of his lavish estate on the outskirts of London.

Unfortunately, as Osbourne’s son Jack told reporters at the time, Osbourne soon found himself in a London hospital undergoing emergency surgery to address “a broken collarbone, eight fractured ribs that were pinching crucial blood vessels and a damaged vertebrae in his neck.”

Thankfully, the capable emergency surgical team at Wexham Park Hospital in Slough, west of London, successfully patched up and stabilized Osbourne. 

Watch a News Report About Ozzy Osbourne's Crash

If anything good came out of this episode, it was his, and his family’s, realization that the aggressive regimen of prescription drugs that Osbourne had been placed on to alleviate anxiety over wife Sharon’s cancer diagnosis was partly to blame -- not only for the ATV accident, but also for the singer’s general stupor, famously captured on the family's popular reality TV show The Osbournes.

Some of the metal rods that were placed in his back as a result of this accident were dislodged in 2019 when he suffered a fall in his house. The recuperation caused him to postpone his entire tour calendar for the year.

The irony of all this is that it wasn't decades of alcohol and illegal drug abuse that almost did in the Prince of Darkness: It was an irresponsible dosage of legal drugs and a four-wheel contraption.

 

 

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