Bono's Gruesome Cycling Injuries Revealed: U2 Frontman Has 5-Hour Surgery, 3 Plates and 18 Screws Installed in His Arm

In addition to breaking his arm so badly that his humerus poked through his skin, the singer also fractured an orbital bone

By Natalie Finn Nov 20, 2014 2:28 AMTags
Bono, Clooney WeddingSplash News

Turns out Bono had a far bloodier Sunday than we knew about.

Two days after U2 initially confirmed that the singer had "injured his arm in a cycling spill" over the weekend, one of Bono's doctors painted the full picture for Rolling Stone, revealing that the patient needed five hours of surgery on his smashed-up left arm and then had another operation the following day to repair his left hand.

Additionally, Bono suffered a "left facial fracture involving the orbit of his eye," according to Dr. Dean Lorich, an orthopedic trauma surgeon who worked on the rocker at New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and Hospital For Special Surgery.

Bono's injuries included a fractured left shoulder blade in three separate pieces; a compound distal humerus fracture in which his upper arm bone was in six pieces and drove through the skin; and a fracture of his fifth metacarpal.

Per Dr. Lorich, he "was taken emergently to the operating room for a five-hour surgery Sunday evening where the elbow was washed out and debrided, a nerve trapped in the break was moved and the bone was repaired with three metal plates and 18 screws."

"He will require intensive and progressive therapy, however a full recovery is expected," the doctor added.

Well, we would hope so!

U2 was forced to postpone a planned week-long residence on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon after the accident and it certainly seems as though the planning stage of their tour is going to last a lot longer than they previously thought.

The Edge told RS in September that they planned to hit the road in support of their latest album, the distributed-to-every-iTunes-user Songs of Innocence, but it was "too early to describe what [the tour] will be like."