CAKE Boss star Buddy Valastro gave fans a very graphic glimpse into his recovery after impaling his hand on a metal rod.
Back in September, the Cake Boss star revealed he was hospitalized after a “horrific” bowling accident that “required multiple surgeries” on his hand.
The 43-year-old has now shared his mission to get better on a two-hour TLC special, Buddy Valastro: Road To Recovery.
The special episode opened with a warning to viewers, “this program includes graphic images of an injury and the treatments that followed. Viewer discretion is advised”.
It opened with his wife frantically calling 911 and trying to explain what had happened.
She sobbed before explaining: “I don’t know. My husband was fixing the bowling alley and something happened.”
When the operator asked Lisa, 40, to repeat herself, she shrieked: “He’s stuck! He’s stuck!”
Security footage showed Lisa on the phone outside of the house as she continued to tell the confused operator: “I have a bowling alley. He went to fix it and something happened. I can’t go down there. Please!”
The episode also showed Buddy writhing in pain just hours later at the hospital and fearing his injury would hurt his career.
“I am nothing without my hands,” he said to Lisa and she comforted him saying, “guardian angels” would look after him.
It then cut back to Lisa calling her nervous family to explain the damage to Buddy’s hand.
She told them that doctors had to cut Buddy’s hand which had broken bones and thumb, nerve and tendon damage.
But when a New York surgeon looked at a video of Buddy’s hand, she called him in for immediate surgery because it was worryingly swollen and could have muscle damage.
“I’m so mad at myself. My hands is everything to me. It’s everything,” Buddy said after he first got home from hospital.
“I have never felt pain like that in my life.”
His baking business makes 4,700 cakes a day and Buddy worried his injuries would stop him working, admitting he felt “worthless” at not being able to pipe cakes.
“I’m determined to get back to being the Cake Boss, but I just don’t know how much functionality I’ll get back. There are still a lot of unknowns,” Buddy said.
He has undergone hand therapy since his surgery and promised his medical team “cake for life”.
“Doc, I owe you a lot, and I owe HSS a lot, so you guys get cake for life, okay?,” Buddy told his surgeon, Dr Michelle Carson.
The two-hour special also showed his family members, including Buddy’s kids reactions to the horrific accident.
Buddy Jr, 16 told his family, “I saw insides coming out of his hand”.
“I was petrified. I was so scared I couldn’t even see anything,” said his daughter, Sofia, 17.
“I didn’t know what was going to happen about his hand or what’s going to happen. I didn’t know if he was going to lose a finger. I don’t know if he was going to lose three.”
The chef’s representative spoke to People about the accident, who revealed that the injury happened while the chef was spending “quality time” with his family at their home in New Jersey.
The rep said: “There was a malfunction with the bowling pinsetter, a common fix in the past, but it turned into a terrible accident.”
They continued: “After trying to release the bowling pin from the cage mechanism, his right hand became lodged and compressed inside the unit.
“Unable to remove his hand, he can see a 1-1/2 metal rod slowly and repeatedly impale his hand three times between his ring finger and middle finger.”
Buddy and Lisa’s sons – Buddy Jr, 16, and Marco, 13 – then used a reciprocating saw “to cut through the metal rod and relieve his father from the machine.”
The chef later opened up about the horrific accident in his Instagram stories, in which he tearfully revealed how his 16-year-old son saved him after the metal rod impaled his hand.
Back in November, Buddy told People magazine that Lisa “amazing” since his accident happened.
Buddy and Lisa married in 2001.
In addition to sons Buddy Jr. and Sofia, they are also the parents to Marco and Carlo.
