Jay Leno undergoes surgery to treat 'significant burns' following car fire
Jay Leno has undergone surgery to treat the "significant burns" he suffered in a car fire over the weekend.
The TV host was hospitalised on Saturday after a gasoline fire broke out in his garage in Burbank, California while he was working underneath a vehicle. The 72-year-old insisted he was doing O.K. and would be back on his feet in a week or two.
However, Dr Peter H. Grossman, medical director at the Grossman Burn Center in Los Angeles, said in a press conference on Wednesday that his patient's recovery may take a little longer than he anticipated.
Dr Grossman revealed that Leno sustained "a mixture of deep second-degree burns and possibly some third-degree burns" to his face, hands and chest, with the burns on his face being "a little bit deeper and a little bit more concerning".
He shared that the Jay Leno's Garage host underwent surgery earlier this week in which his team removed unhealthy tissue and placed a temporary "biological skin substitute" over the wounds. He will undergo another procedure later this week, and it is too soon to tell if he will need more operations.
"He did well with that surgery. He is in good spirits today," Dr Grossman shared. "He is still undergoing further treatment and will need another procedure later on this week. Our hope is that when everything is all said and done he will do well but burn injuries are progressive and dynamic and it's hard to predict ultimately what the final outcome will be at this stage in the game."
He added that the former Tonight Show host has also been receiving hyperbaric oxygen therapy, in which he enters a chamber and breathes pure oxygen, as this decreases swelling inside the tissue.
And while Leno's injuries may be serious, Dr Grossman insisted his condition is good and he is walking around the hospital cracking jokes.
He expects Leno to make a full recovery but noted that it was too soon to know if there would be "remnants" of the injury.
