“HE DID WHAT???”

These words (or others along these lines) have frequently echoed across the annals of rock and roll history, but rarely louder than on the occasion when heavy metal wildman, Ozzy Osbourne, decided that jumping behind the wheel of an all-terrain-vehicle seemed like a good idea.

But, as was reported everywhere from CNN to ATV Monthly, ten years ago, that’s essentially what essentially transpired when the then-55-year-old Mr. Osbourne embarked on what he thought to be a casual joyride across the grounds of his lavish estate on the outskirts of London.

Unfortunately, as Ozzy’s son, Jack Osbourne, told news sources at the time, the elderly rocker soon found himself in a London hospital undergoing emergency surgery to address “a broken collarbone, eight fractured ribs that were pinching crucial blood vessels, and a damaged vertebrae in his neck.”

Thankfully, the capable emergency surgical team at Wexham Park Hospital in Slough, west of London, successfully patched up and stabilized ol’ Oz, and he was soon fighting fit to face another day in the trenches of heavy metal glory.

Ozzy Talks About His ATV Accident

And if anything good came out of this episode, it was Ozzy’s and his family’s realization that the aggressive regimen of prescription drugs he’d been placed under to alleviate anxiety over his wife Sharon’s cancer diagnosis was partly to blame -- not only for the ATV accident, but the singer’s general stupor, famously captured throughout much of MTV’s then massively popular TV series, ‘The Osbournes.’

The irony of all this though, is that what decades of alcohol, illicit drug abuse, not to mention the odd case of mandibular bat/dove-decapitation, couldn’t do -- snuff out the Prince of Darkness – an irresponsible dosage of legal drugs and a four-wheel contraption of ill-repute nearly accomplished, that fateful day.

Luckily for Ozzy and all of us who love the dear old goat, his deceptively fragile old body proved indestructible, yet again. So cheers, Ozzy, but let one of us take the wheel next time, would ya?

You Think You Know Ozzy Osbourne?

See the Yearbook Photos of Ozzy Osbourne + Other Rock Stars

More From US 103.1 FM