During Jay Leno’s Today Show interview, the comedian described the feeling of the near-fatal burns he experienced during an accident at his garage last month. After he got gas all over his face, a light suddenly went on, igniting the gas. Suddenly, the comedian’s face “caught on fire,” he told Hoda Kotb.
Leno and his friend David Killackey were working on a 1907 White Steam Car, one of the cars in Leno’s beloved collection of classic cars at his Los Angeles home, on Nov. 12. The fuel line was clogged, so he got underneath the car. He asked Killackey to “blow some air through the line,” which his friend did.
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There was suddenly a noise from the fuel line. “Boom, I got a face full of gas,” Leno told Kotb. “And then the pilot light jumped and my face caught on fire.” Leno, 72, credited Killackey for saving his life with quick thinking. He pulled Leno away from the car and jumped onto him. He “kind of smothered the fire,” the Last Man Standing star said of his friend.
The former Tonight Show host also told PEOPLE that his face “was on fire” after the accident. Killackey added that Leno was “engulfed in flames… I couldn’t even see his face.”
Leno was treated at the Grossman Burn Center in West Hills Hospital in Los Angeles for third-degree burns. He stayed at the hospital for 10 days. A few days after the accident, Dr. Peter Grossman told NBC News that Leno suffered “relatively serious” burns to about 7% of his body. The burns covered his face, chest, and hands. Doctors used temporary skin grafts from “human cadaver skin,” Grossman said. Leno was released from the facility on Nov. 21 and returned to performing standup weeks after the accident.
After the accident, Leno was rushed to the hospital, where he only received immediate treatment before going to a burn unit. He told Kotb that he drove home the night after the accident to explain what was happening to his wife Mavis. “My wife doesn’t drive anymore and I didn’t want her stuck and not knowing what was going on,” Leno said on Today. “So you loved your wife more than you were worried about yourself?” Kotb asked. “Yeah, that’s it. Yeah,” Leno joked. “Well, I think there’s something to that.”
Leno did go back to the Grossman Burn Center for treatment. “When he came in, his burns were deeper than I had anticipated and in the next 24 hours they became a lot more concerning,” Grossman told PEOPLE. “Functionally and cosmetically I had serious concerns. Jay ending up with permanent disfigurement was a big worry for me.”
While Grossman was concerned about how Leno would look in the future, it wasn’t a big worry for him. “When you look like me, you don’t really worry about what you look like,” Leno told Kotb. “Look, if I’m George Clooney, it’s going to be a huge problem. But they said it would be alright so, you know my attitude is I trust people who are the best to do what they do.”
Grossman remains impressed with Leno’s recovery. “I’m very happy with the outcome,” the physician told PEOPLE.”But considering the severity of his injuries, Jay is definitely an outlier. I wasn’t expecting him to heal as quickly as he has so far.”
