Now, Richard Branson has revealed how he feared he would die after crashing head first onto a road in a high-speed bike crash on the British Virgin Islands. The 66-year-old was on a training cycle run with his two adult children Holly and Sam when the horrifying incident occurred on Virgin Gorda on Monday.
Sir Richard, who is worth nearly £4billion (Sh532 billion), was taken to Miami, Florida, for X-rays and scans – which found he had suffered from torn ligaments and a cracked cheek.
He said: “I was heading down a hill towards Leverick Bay when it suddenly got really dark and I managed to hit a ‘sleeping policeman’ hump in the road head on. The next thing I knew, I was being hurled over the handlebars and my life was literally flashing before my eyes. I really thought I was going to die. I went flying head-first towards the concrete road, but fortunately my shoulder and cheek took the brunt of the impact. I really couldn’t believe I was alive, let alone not paralysed.”
He added that wearing a helmet saved his life, as his bicycle went flying off the cliff.The first person to arrive on the scene was his assistant Helen Clarke, whom he claims to have told: ‘I’m alive! At least you’ve still got a job.’
He added: “My biggest hardship is having to drink tea out of a straw. Oh, and being called elephant man by a six year old. My attitude has always been, if you fall flat on your face, at least you’re moving forward. All you have to do is get back up and try again.”
The accident took place on the fifth anniversary of the fire on his private residence of Necker Island, which gutted his £75million (Sh10 billion) house meaning it had to be rebuilt. The incident comes six months after he told of how he had been “bitten by a shark” while swimming with dozens of stingrays in the Cayman Islands.
During the same trip he also smashed his head into a glass door while out shopping – and he has knocked teeth out twice while playing tennis over the past year. And in 1985, his speedboat famously capsized in high seas about 140 miles from the Isles of Scilly as he tried to set a record for the fastest-ever Atlantic crossing.
