Ron Walker has emergency brain surgery after bike fall

GRAND Prix boss Ron Walker has undergone emergency brain surgery after narrowly avoiding a seizure following a bike accident.

RON Walker has undergone emergency brain surgery after narrowly avoiding a seizure following a fall off his bike last month.

The Australian F1 Grand Prix chairman revealed his health scare this morning, describing how close he came to having a seizure before needing surgery.

He fell off his bike in Melbourne's Royal Botanic Gardens last month.

“I didn't realise how hard I hit my head on the gutter,” he told 3AW radio today.

While the accident was in February, Mr Walker said he had no headaches or symptoms until last Saturday evening.

“I was going to the movies with my wife and I tried to do the buttons up on my shirt and my brain was being ignored by my limbs - I couldn't do my buttons up,” he said.

He visited a neurosurgeon, who discovered he had fluid on the brain.

“They bored a hole in my skull and took the fluid out and I had to lay flat for a number of days,” he said.

“I was a tick a way from a seizure ... that would have caused all sorts of complications in the brain and some people don't recover.”

Mr Walker, also a former Fairfax chairman, is now fine but said he was “very lucky indeed”.

He had been wearing a bike helmet when he hit his head but explained that he was struck just above the eyebrow.

Mr Walker has now given up cycling and his wife has given him a dressing down, he said.

He'll still attend the grand prix at the weekend, but won't be as active at the event as he was before.

“I'm not going to walk 25 kilometres a day like I normally do,” he said. “A little easier, yes.'