X-ray reveals severity of Wide Bay MP Llew O’Brien’s injuries after recent raceway crash

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce says Member for Wide Bay Llew O’Brien’s wife has taken the keys to his motorbike as he remains off work after fracturing his skull in a raceway crash.

Wide Bay MP Llew O'Brien was injured in a motorbike accident. The X-ray shows an occipital fracture.

Update:

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce says the wife of Member for Wide Bay Llew O’Brien has taken the keys to his motorbike as he recovers from a serious raceway crash.

Speaking at a roads funding announcement at Noosa on Thursday, the kind of event the local MP wouldn’t ordinarily miss, Mr Joyce said he and his team “love Llew to death but we want him to stay away from his son’s racetracks – he’s not 25 anymore”.

“I’ve heard that Sharon (Mr O’Brien’s wife) has taken the keys off the bike and every other bike and locked them up,” he joked

“He’s getting better, which is the main thing.

“I need him back in Canberra and so do you. He does a power of work down there … he came down to (an LNP) conference the other day and he looked like he was set in concrete so we need him to chill for a bit and get ready to be back at work.”

Earlier

Medical imaging shows the severity of Wide Bay MP Llew O’Brien’s injuries after came off a motorbike at a Queensland raceway.

The Deputy Speaker suffered a skull fracture after he “misjudged” the entry of a corner at Lakeside Motorsport Park on July 17.

At the time he joked he wasn’t sure how he was “going to go chairing parliament” with a neck brace but was otherwise “all good and should be out of hospital soon”.

Since then, Mr O’Brien has been notably absent from major events in his electorate including the Deputy Prime Minister’s visit to the $60 million Maryborough munitions factory and a milestone for the city’s Gallipoli to Armistice War Memorial.

While invites to local media events featuring Barnaby Joyce this week came through from Mr O’Brien’s office, he didn’t attend any of them.

Wide Bay MP Llew O'Brien is an avid motorcyclist and regularly rides to Canberra. He’s pictured here on a break at Walcha.

On Thursday, as it became clear he also wouldn’t be attending a roads announcement alongside the Deputy Prime Minister at Noosa, it was explained Mr O’Brien had suffered an “occipital fracture”.

“I took a bit of an awkward hit to the head, which caused me to be temporarily knocked unconscious and a small fracture to the occipital bone at the rear of my skull,” Mr O’Brien told NewsCorp.

“They did detect another fracture in my T4 vertebrae, but it now looks like one I prepared earlier and was not a result of the recent incident.”

Asked when he expected to be back at work Mr O’Brien said it had been “impressed” upon him that he shouldn’t push through or rush his recovery after a concussion or the type of neck injury he’d suffered.

He said that’s why his “good mate”, the Deputy Prime Minister, had been doing the rounds in Wide Bay without me over the past few days”.

“I’m under strict doctor’s instructions from the doctor to let my body heal for a few more weeks before re-entering the fray of Australian politics,” Mr O’Brien said.

“In the meantime my son William, who also enjoys a track day, has told me I need to stick with my Dunlop Q4 tires, invest in a suspension upgrade and that my replacement petrol tank is on its way.

“He’s also told me the closest I’m allowed to my track bike for the next 12 months is listening to the exhaust note of its Yoshimura pipe go past while he’s riding it at Lakeside.”