Eamonn Holmes has told of the moment he hit the stone floor of his home after tumbling down a spiral staircase when recovering from back surgery.
Speaking to the Daily Mail in his first interview since the accident, The North Belfast man told how 'blood was pouring out of his mouth' and 'a bone was sticking out of his shoulder'.
Eamonn began experiencing severe back pain in recent years, but doesn't know the cause. He previously had a double hip replacement in 2015.
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The 63-year-old underwent back surgery at the end of September 2022.
He told the Daily Mail: 'It went well — the doctor tidied things up, and generally the pain has gone, which is brilliant...
"The flip side is that it has now left me with an issue in my left leg, which would collapse unexpectedly.
"So it was a case of 'the good news is that your back is better, but now your legs don't work.'"
Eamonn added: "Just simple things like getting up out of a chair, my leg would collapse underneath me, and I would fall.
"Having never fallen before in my life, over a two-week period I had something like six falls in ten days. It was brutal."
The accident at his home happened in October when wife Ruth Langsford was in bed and Eamonn was heading upstairs.
He said: "Suddenly it was as if someone had shot my left knee from behind.
"It literally collapsed without any warning. I was on a curve of the stairs, and I just went back down the stairs, boom, boom, boom down the whole staircase until I hit the stone floor in the hallway."
Eamonn added: "Blood was pouring out my mouth, and a bone was sticking out my shoulder.
"Ruth came rushing down the stairs. She kept saying, 'You're fine, everything's okay, you're fine.' I said, 'Ruthie, there is a bone sticking out of my shoulder — I'm not fine.'"
Ruth was then told it would be a four-hour wait for an ambulance, reports the Daily Mail.
Eamonn said: "Ruthie put a pillow under my head and sat with me in the hall and we tried to sleep."
The ambulance arrived after two hours and Eamonn underwent surgery on his shoulder and spent a week in hospital. Afterwards he stayed in a private rehabilitation centre for six weeks, it's reported.
He told the Daily Mail: "I had a left leg that didn't work, a right arm that didn't work, and a lower back that had seen better days, so it was pretty bad.
"The most awful thing is the sense of helplessness.
"I can't get out of a chair without help; I can't just get myself a glass of water. I have to lean on people a lot. It's a big strain on everybody — particularly Ruthie."
He added: "Being ill is very isolating... Then, just as I was thinking the year couldn't get any worse there was my poor mum."
The TV presenter's mum Josie died in November, aged 93.
In one of Eamonn's final conversations with his beloved mum, who he previously labelled as 'his hero', he told her he would be unable to attend the funeral due to his health issues.
He said: "She told me she didn't want me there anyway, and said, 'If you're there, everybody will be talking about you and wanting to shake your hand and it's my day, it's not your day.'
"That was typical of her. But it's something I never thought I would have to face in life — not being at my mother's funeral.
"That was a terrible low. It was just inconceivable being Irish Catholic that you wouldn't be carrying your mother's coffin."
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