Cake Boss star gives injury update 3 years after impaling his hand in freak bowling accident

Cake Boss star Buddy Valastro's long journey to recovery is almost complete after his hand was repeatedly impaled in a freak bowling accident three years ago.

"Thank God, I don't think I'm going to be a hand model but I have a lot of mobility and strength," the celebrity baker said in a recent interview with Extra promoting his new show Buddy Valastro's Cake Dynasty. "I've got one more surgery I've got to get to get this finger straightened out, but considering? I'd say 95 percent [healed]."

He added, "My hands are everything to me. Without my hands, in the decorating world, I'm nothing."

After five surgeries, Valastro was scared when he couldn't bend his dominant right hand, but the most recent procedure gave him a lot of mobility back. "I was really immobile for about six months where I couldn't even use my hand," he said. "The doctor's like, 'Don't worry, this last surgery I'm going to release the tendons and you're going to be good to go.'"

Valastro injured himself in a gruesome accident at his home bowling alley in 2020, when a malfunction with the pinsetter caused his right hand to become lodged and compressed inside the unit. He was unable to remove his hand as a metal rod slowly impaled his hand three times between his ring finger and middle finger. After more than five minutes, Valastro's two teen sons used a reciprocating saw to cut through the metal rod and free him from the machine.

Watch the video above for more from Valastro.

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