Ozzy Faces Lengthy Recovery

Ozzy Osbourne is joking with nurses — asking two to marry him — but will probably take six months to fully recover from his quad bike crash injuries, his wife Sharon said Tuesday.

The former Black Sabbath lead singer is making progress in the intensive care unit of Wexham Park Hospital in Slough, west of London, where he has been since the Dec. 8 accident.

Sharon Osbourne said it would be "probably about six months" before her husband is back to his old self.

"But he will be back, he's not going anywhere. He'll be ordering everybody around, don't worry," Sharon Osbourne told ITV television.

The Daily Mirror tabloid last week quoted Sharon Osbourne as saying her husband stopped breathing and his heart stopped for a minute after the accident. A security guard had resuscitated him, she said.

"He resuscitated him and got him breathing and his pulse going again. We are so, so grateful to him," she said.

The singer, 55, was taken off a ventilator assisting him to breathe on Monday. He fractured his left collarbone, eight ribs and a neck vertebra in the accident at his estate in Buckinghamshire, southern England, and had emergency surgery shortly after admission to restore the flow to a damaged blood vessel.

"He's awake and he's causing havoc. He's busy telling jokes all the time, he's already asked two nurses to marry him," said Sharon Osbourne.

She said her husband woke up a week after the accident to discover that his single "Changes," a duet with daughter Kelly, was at the top of the British charts.

"He has never had a number one and for me it just goes to show how people love him ... He couldn't speak but tears were coming out," Sharon Osbourne said.

Born John Michael Osbourne, Ozzy Osbourne first earned fame as a member of Black Sabbath, a pioneering heavy metal band, starting in the 1960s.

He eventually went solo, but his career stalled amid rampant drug use and wild antics that included biting the heads off animals.

His career enjoyed a rebirth with the MTV reality show featuring his home and family life.