After experiencing severe burns last week when one of his many vintage cars caught on fire, Jay Leno has been released from the Grossman Burn Center in Los Angeles and is expected to make a full recovery. Leno had been working on a 1907 White Model G Steam Car (he’s going to be fine, so we can make a joke about how you should write that down in case it ever comes up as a trivia question) when a clog in the fuel line caused some gasoline to spray out onto his face and hands. The gasoline was then ignited by a spark, and though a nearby friend was able to quickly help, Leno was left with “deep second-degree burns, and possibly some third-degree burns.”
But he’s going to be okay, and Dr. Peter Grossman—of the famous burn center that shares his name!—said in a statement (via NBC Los Angeles) that he’s “optimistic” that Leno is going to “make a full recovery” after undergoing a pair of grafting surgeries and hyperbaric oxygen therapy. The Grossman Burn Center is so confident that Leno is going to be fine that it released a photo of him with some of the medical staff, which would be a weird thing to do otherwise.
Still, Leno’s recovery might take a little time and require him to take a bit of a break, with Grossman saying that the comedian might need to “step it back a little” and focus on treatment, adding, “I do feel he will be back to work at some point soon and back to the things that he loves to do.” That’s the kind of caution we’ve come to expect from the Grossman Burn Center. They’re not just going to throw Jay Leno back out on the streets and let him keep working on old steam cars until it’s safe for him to do so.