Masaharu Morimoto Recovers from Surgery on Broken Wrist

People.com—New York, NY—June 27, 2010

Iron Chef competitor Masaharu Morimoto's career nearly came crashing down last fall. The Japanese sushi chef was getting out of a hot tub in a New Jersey spa when he slipped on a wet floor and landed backwards on his right wrist.

"I knew right away that I had broken it," Morimoto, 55, told PEOPLE. "I thought, 'What if I can't go back to the kitchen?' My wrist is very important to me – it's my world, my job, my life."

Within a day of the accident, Dr. Andrew Weiland of Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City operated on Morimoto and inserted a very thin titanium plate in his right wrist. "He had one of the more severe fractures I've seen," says Weiland. "He's a big guy, so the impact was pretty great."

For six months, Morimoto worked with an occupational therapist at HSS doing hand exercises – practicing with a rubber knife – to increase Morimoto’s range of motion. He’s now able to chop and slice fish.

Read the full story at people.com.