Billionaire British business man Richard Branson said he thought he was about to die as he crashed head-first while cycling in the British Virgin Islands.
The 66-year-old owner of Virgin, who is worth almost £4 bn (us$5.3bn) didn’t exactly have a near-death experience, but did suffer torn ligaments and a cracked cheek after being taken to Miami for X-rays and scans following the accident on Monday.
Branson said the accident happened when he was cycling downhill during a training run when he hit a “sleeping policeman” hump on the road and dived head first into the ground.
“The next thing I knew, I was being hurled over the handlebars and my life was literally flashing before my eyes,” Branson said. “I really thought I was going to die.”
Branson took the moral of the story to be always wear a helmet, which he said “saved his life.”
His bicycle reportedly went flying off a cliff.
Currently the biggest hardship for the tycoon is drinking out of a straw, but luckily, he saw the funny side of things.
“My attitude has always been, if you fall flat on your face, at least you’re moving forward,” he said. “All you have to do is get back up and try again.”
The entrepreneur’s luck has not been great in the last few years. Only six months ago Branson said he was bitten by a shark while swimming in the Cayman Islands. In the same trip he also reportedly smashed his head into a glass door and also knocked his teeth out twice while playing tennis in the last year, according to the Daily Mail.
Branson was recently involved in a public spat with Jeremy Corbyn after the Labour leader claimed there were no seats available on a Virgin train, resulting in him sitingt on the floor.
Virgin Trains, owned by Branson, then released CCTV footage of a nearly empty carriage showing Corbyn and his team walking “past empty, unreserved seats in coach” before they sat on the floor.
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