Apprentice star out of show after horrific bike accident
CLAUDE Littner will miss the next series of The Apprentice after almost losing his right leg in an accident on his electric bike.
The businessman now has to learn to walk again after injuring it so badly that doctors considered amputation.
The 72-year-old has had nine operations and will have another on July 19.
Claude said the accident happened near his home in Mill Hill, North London: “I was just pottering along... on this sort of two-track road.
“The next thing I knew, I was on the left-hand side of the street and my bike was in the middle of the road.
“I suspect I hit a pothole or something. I must have blanked out at the moment of impact.”
Claude – a long-time associate of the BBC show’s kingpin Lord Alan Sugar – thought he would “just get up”. But he then realised he was seriously injured when he saw a bone sticking out.
Next thing he knew he was waking up in the capital’s St Mary’s Hospital to find “some surgeons looking at me”.
He said: “My wife and my sons were there. [The doctors] decided they were going to amputate.
Recovery
“They had another chat and said, ‘Let’s get him into theatre right away tonight and see if we can save his leg’.”
Praising the “superb” hospital staff, Claude said he has shed two stone since the April accident. But he said he is “untouchable mentally” and has an “absolute determination” to recover.
Lord Sugar said: “Claude has been part of the series since the beginning. I’ve been speaking to him regularly about his recovery.We hope to see him back in the boardroom very soon.”
Claude was diagnosed with blood cancer non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 1997 and given six months to live.
The winner of the first ever series of the show, entrepreneur Tim Campbell, will stand in for Claude alongside Lord Sugar and Baroness Karren Brady when the series returns early next year.
He said: “I was saddened by the circumstances which led to getting the call from Lord Sugar but...I know the hard work that goes into it so I didn’t take the decision lightly.”
Music mogul and talent show judge Simon Cowell had to have an operation to repair his broken back after falling off an electric bike near his California home last year.