Jay Leno shared specific details of his burn injury for the first time The Today Show This morning he revealed what happened when he suffered third-degree burns to his face, chest and hands while working on one of his cars last month. The comedian who sat down for an interview with today Host Hoda Kotb explained that his burns were the result of a clogged fuel line on his 1907 White Steam Car.
Leno explained that he was working on the car with his friend Dave Killackey on November 12 when the incident happened. He said Today, “The fuel line was clogged so i was down. It sounded blocked and I said ‘blow some air through the line’ and so on [Killackey] did… And suddenly, boom, I got a face full of gas. And then the pilot light came on and my face caught fire.”
Killackey, who also appeared on Lenos today Interview, Kotb said he smothered his friend’s face to put out the flames and then told him to splash his burns with cold water in the bathroom. Killackey said Leno “downplayed” the incident, “insisting that his burns were “horrific” and “scary.” He called 911 and doctors told Leno he needed to go to a burns center, but he initially refused and instead drove home for the night.
He eventually went to the hospital and spent 10 days at the Grossman Burn Center in Los Angeles, where he underwent skin grafts and was placed in a hyperbaric chamber. Asked by Kotb if he worries about his looks after having skin grafts, Leno joked, “If you look like me, you don’t worry about how you look,” before adding, “But they said it was ok so you know my attitude is that i trust people who are the best to do what they do.
Following what he said in a earlier this week Wall Street Journal Column, Leno told Kotb that such incidents happen all the time and he doesn’t want to make a big deal out of his injuries.
“In the real world, that’s people every day,” he said. “If you work with your hands, people work with their hands and they hurt themselves every day. And I don’t want to be a whining celebrity, ‘Boo hoo, that’s me.'”