14 September 2004
Newsdesk
The exact details of Ronnie James Dio's gardening accident of 2003 have come to light in an interview with Rockdetector.com editor Garry Sharpe-Young.
Rockdetector.com: Last year, Internet rumours surfaced that you had severed your thumb in a gardening accident. While I'm sure a lot of fans initially brushed this off as unlikely, it then transpired to be true. What actually happened on that day?
Ronnie James Dio: 'It was a killer garden gnome. I'm not joking, although I certainly wish I was. What happened was that I was in my yard trying to place this garden gnome on a slope. This is a seriously heavy piece of garden ornament, probably 60lbs or so. Anyway, it fell over, I fell into the shrubbery and then began to slide down to the bottom of the hill. I was trying to stop myself with my feet but put my hand out at the wrong moment. You can understand this all happened in a split second. My hand landed on a rock, and the gnome landed on it, squashing my thumb between the rock and the gnome. Basically it was crushed and took the end of my thumb off. I just looked at my hand and the first thought that flashed into my mind was, 'How on earth am I going to make my devil horn sign now? That's my trademark!' I wasn't worried about the injury, more concerned with my career.'
