Eighties singer Paul Young has recalled needing three emergency blood transfusions following a horrific accident.
Young is best known as the frontman of bands Kat Kool & the Kool Cats, Streetband, and Q Tips. He pursued a solo career in the Eighties, releasing songs such as “Love of the Common People” and “Wherever I Lay My Hat”.
The 69-year-old suffered a nasty fall down a flight of stairs while on holiday in Santorini in September 2024. He had been walking to breakfast at his hotel when his leg “slipped out from underneath me”.
“I fell and my leg cracked as soon as I hit the step,” he told The Mirror. “Once I’d gone down, I couldn’t stop. There was no handrail, so nothing to hold on to. I just thought, ‘I’ve lost control.’”
Explaining his injuries further, Young explained that he fell down three or four steps, which caused him to fracture his leg “again and again”.
He continued: “It was a multi-fracture. When I came to a stop, I looked down and my leg was in a slightly weird position, underneath my bottom.
“I thought, ‘I don’t like that. My leg shouldn’t be like that’, so I tried to straighten it up and that’s when the pain started.”
Young was accompanied by his wife Lorna, 53, who was able to seek help and eventually, the musician was rushed to the hospital.
The injuries were so severe that there was a “danger of the leg snapping”, according to Young.
A lack of surgeons at the hospital meant Young was sat on a gurney in the hospital corridor for nine hours while trying to organise a private flight to Athens.
“The only medication they had was paracetamol. I was screaming out all the time and most of the time I had my eyes shut because the pain was terrible,’ he added.
After undergoing surgery, Young was required to spend two days in intensive care due to haemorrhaging. He also needed three blood transfusions to replace the lost blood.
Young, who called the pain “tremendous”, then had to have a second 10-hour operation.
Now, nearly six months after the accident, Young is no longer using crutches and is undergoing physiotherapy and hydrotherapy to help with his recovery.
Preparing for his forthcoming national tour, the musician said he was now “fighting fit and ready”.
Young married his wife Lorna in October 2023, six years after his wife Stacey Smith died of brain cancer at 52 years old.
Speaking about her death on This Morning, Paul said: “Looking after her for those two years, I wasn’t looking after myself, so I’ve got back on the trail now. I’m back doing exercise. I look after my voice and I warm up. I tend to do it in the car, which must look a little strange!”
Young shares three children with Stacey: daughters Levi and Layla, and son Grady Cole.
