My holiday accident from hell

Fell down steps on Greek Island | Multiple fractures in left thigh | Nine hours on hospital gurney

- MARK JEFFERIES, GEMMA CALVERT

Eighties pop star Paul Young has told of a horrific accident which left him with multiple leg fractures and in intensive care needing three emergency blood transfusions.

Less than 24 hours after arriving on the Greek island of Santorini for a holiday in September, the singer fell down a flight of outdoor hotel steps walking to breakfast.

Paul, 69, says: "It had been spitting with rain. When I got to the top of the steps, as soon as I put my foot on the first step, my leg slipped out from underneath me. I fell and my leg cracked as soon as I hit the step. 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'. I fell down three or four more steps, fracturing my leg again and again."

When he came to a stop, he looked down to see his leg bent up underneath his bottom. He said: "I tried to straighten it up and that's when the pain started."

Paul's wife Lorna, 53, raised the alarm at the five-star De Sol Hotel & Spa reception, and he was rushed to Santorini General Hospital, where X-rays revealed a series of fractures to his left thigh bone.

He says: "All the multi-fractures were right at the top in the femur, by the ball joint so it was very worrying. The fractures were so close to each other, there was a danger of the leg snapping.

"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."

With no surgeons at Santorini hospital, Paul lay on a hospital bed in the corridor for nine hours trying to arrange a private flight to Athens to get the care he needed.