OI! OY!

Ozzy Osbourne nearly died after his all-terrain vehicle overturned at his English mansion on December 8. His heart stopped beating and his breathing stopped for almost two minutes before he was resuscitated by a quick-thinking security guard.

As of press time, the metal icon–turned–reality-TV star, at Wexham Park Hospital in Buckinghamshire, was breathing unaided by a ventilator for the first time since the accident. He broke his collarbone, crushed a major artery and fractured his ribs in eight places. “His whole body is traumatized,” said his wife, Sharon Osbourne, who immediately flew from Los Angeles to his bedside.

The ventilator may have caused severe damage to Osbourne’s vocal cords, possibly preventing him from singing again. “The cords can easily be damaged when the tube goes in and out,” said a hospital insider.

Controversially, American Idol judge Simon Cowell suggested on British radio that the accident was a publicity stunt for “Changes,” Osbourne’s duet single with his daughter Kelly. (After the accident, the single topped the charts, giving Osbourne the first number 1 hit of his career.) Although Cowell later apologized, Sharon responded by calling him “sick and twisted.” “If I could tar and feather Cowell, I would,” she added.

Despite her father’s limited abilities, an emotional Kelly Osbourne claimed he was in good spirits: “He gave me the thumbs-up and stuck his tongue out at me.”