Food Network star/producer Marc Summers is grateful to be alive after sustaining serious facial injuries during a car accident last week.
The 60-year-old star, who currently hosts The Food Network's "Unwrapped," was a passenger in a taxi cab in Philadelphia when the vehicle hydroplaned during a "torrential downpour," Summers told People.
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"I knew when [the driver] lost control that I was in trouble. I was on the phone with my supervising producer and I said, 'Oh my God, we're going to crash!'" he told the mag, recalling the harrowing moments right before the wreck. "Next thing I knew, I woke up and had blood all over me."
Summers' head slammed against the plastic partition between the cab's front and backseats upon impact, badly damaging his face.
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"Everything on the left side from my eye socket down was just wiped out," he told the mag. "My eye socket got all swollen. I'm having trouble seeing completely out of the left eye... There's lots of titanium and screws in my face."
Adding, "I was pretty lucky that I didn't have brain damage."
Summers, a longtime TV producer and former host of Nickelodeon's "Double Dare," underwent a four-hour operation at the hand of a plastic surgeon following the accident.
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While the star is still in tremendous pain, he said his doctor is confident the lengthy operation was successful.
"Everything went back into place," he told the mag. "In a few weeks, the swelling will go down and no one will ever know ... I'll be a new guy."
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Though he faces an arduous recuperation and is still having difficulty chewing solid foods, Summers is already on a mission to prevent this type of accident from happening to anyone else.
"Appreciate all the good wishes from everyone. Pain a little less each day. Will you help me in a campaign to rid cabs of plastic partitions?" he Tweeted on Saturday, later adding that the blockades "serve no purpose other than hurting people" and are "way [too] close to backseat despite seat belts."
-- Erin O'Sullivan
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