Battiato requires mobility aids after stage fall

(By Laura Clarke).
    (ANSA) - Bari, March 17 - Sicilian-Italian singer-songwriter Franco Battiato was recovering in hospital from a broken femur on Tuesday after falling off the stage at the end of a concert late Monday evening.
    The 69-year-old fell after tripping over stage equipment while leaning over to shake hands with members of the audience at the Petruzzelli theatre in the southern city of Bari.
    He fractured the neck of his left thighbone and was admitted to the local university hospital for treatment.
    There doctors inserted three titanium screws to fix the break and said the injury would heal fully in around two months.
    Until then he would require mobility aids, they said.
    "The patient is not in pain but he is a bit tired, also because of repeated strain due to the many visits by busybodies during the course of the morning," consultant orthopedic surgeon Biagio Moretti told ANSA. "Now the situation is such that the patient can sit and move his hip without experiencing pain," the professor continued.
    "Functional recovery is fairly rapid and from tomorrow the patient will be able to stand with the help of crutches, obviously without putting his weight on the injured limb," Moretti explained. "This will happen gradually over 20 days, allowing him to abandon crutches altogether within 40 days-two months," he said, adding that the maestro was "serene".
    "He is clearly autonomous from the outset, but it is a 'protected' autonomy and it is necessary to wait for the fracture to heal biologically before all mobility aids, crutches and walkers, which he needs in the immediate post-operation period, can be abandoned". Battiato, who cuts a unique figure on the Italian music scene and is famous for such hits as La Cura, La stagione dell'amore and Voglio vederti danzare, initially asked to be discharged on Tuesday but was advised to remain an extra day due to the length of the journey home. He will be transported home by ambulance.
    Battiato had just completed an Italy tour with his 'Joe Patti's Experimental group' project dedicated to experimental electronic music, including new songs and revisitations of old favourites, when the accident occurred.