Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood had one whopper of a horrible day on Nov. 12, 1990 — starting with the funeral of a friend's father and ending with a car crash that left him with two broken legs.

Wood and his family were driving west of London when the accident occurred, making their way home from the funeral when they hit an oil patch on the highway during a rainstorm, and ended up swerving out of their lane. Wood, who'd been riding while his wife Jo drove, got out of the car to try and avert disaster, only to end up risking catastrophic injury.

Saying he was "munching on little white sweets" when the car skidded "broadside in the fast lane," Wood wrote in his autobiography that in a panicked effort to prevent oncoming traffic from smashing into them, he "did the unbelievably stupid thing of getting out of the car and standing in the fast lane to alert oncoming cars that we were in trouble."

That's when things went from bad to worse. Suddenly staring headlights in the face, Wood remembered jumping over the trunk of his car — only to end up being clipped in the ankles after the car he'd been trying to avoid slammed back into him. "The kids had some cuts and Jo was okay, but I was tossed into the gutter and didn't dare look down," wrote Wood, who recalled thinking, "That's it. I've lost my legs."

A crowd soon gathered, some of whom got the wrong idea when they noticed Wood had spit out the candy in his mouth and thought they were his teeth. It was only after medical personnel arrived and asked Wood if he could feel his feet that he managed to look down and see his legs were still attached to his body.

"I'd broken two bones in one leg and one in the other, and was in plaster for three months," he wrote of the ordeal, which left him in the hospital for a week. "My ankles still hurt to this day — but considering what might have happened I'd say it's a small price to pay."
 
 

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