Buddy Valastro has nothing but gratitude for the doctors and surgeons who treated him after a gruesome accident in his home bowling alley crushed and impaled his hand. The Cake Boss star told TODAY Tuesday that while he may have to get another surgery “over time,” he’s nearly back to how he was before the accident.
Giving thanks to the technology used by the medical professionals to treat him over the past year, Valastro explained, “I had nerve damage and she repaired the nerve. These fingers here, for like a year, just felt tingly and asleep, but now the nerve’s starting to regenerate and it actually feels back to normal. It’s so crazy what we can do today with technology.”
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“You have such a different respect for the doctors – not that I didn’t respect them before but when it happens to you, you just think of all those people who helped you get where you are and recover,” the baker continued. “And through COVID! They really were truly heroes.” Valastro also thanked his wife Lisa and their four children – daughter Sofia, 17, and sons Buddy Jr., 16, Marco, 13, and Carlo, 10 – for their support while recovering.
The Food Network star injured himself on Sept. 20, 2020, when his home bowling alley’s pinsetter malfunctioned. Going to fix the problem, Valastro’s hand got stuck in the machine and was impaled by a metal rod three times between his ring and middle fingers. The reality personality would undergo five reconstructive hand surgeries and physical therapy leading up to today. From the start, Valastro “really had no idea what I was going to get back to. At that point, I don’t think the doctor even knew.”
Facing a long recovery was “really scary,” Valastro explained, especially when it came to his business and livelihood. “When I think about Cake Boss, or I think about these cakes that I make, I think that anything in the world is possible, and then I go and make it happen with my hands. This is what I do,” he said. “And I felt like part of that might not ever be there again. It was tough.”
