Richards treated in hospital after fall from palm tree

One of rock’s true hellraisers, Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, may have suffered a mild brain haemorrhage after falling from a palm tree in Fiji.

The band’s publicist yesterday refused to comment on reports that Richards will need surgery after the accident or that doctors need to drill the rocker’s skull to drain blood from his brain.

Richards and his fellow Stone Ronnie Wood were reportedly climbing the tree for coconuts last Thursday when Richards took a tumble and landed badly. Feeling mildly concussed the guitarist is then said to have got on a jetski but lost control and fell into the water. After complaining of a headache, the 62-year-old was flown from the luxury holiday island of Wakaya to Fiji’s capital Suva. From there he was airlifted to a private hospital in Auckland, New Zealand, where he stayed until he was discharged on Tuesday. The hospital’s duty manager Geoff Sparks told reporters: “I can categorically confirm Mr Richards is no longer a patient in this hospital. He has been discharged.”

According to the Sun newspaper, Richards will be fit for the European leg of the band’s tour which starts in Barcelona on May 27 if the surgery goes to plan.

Richards and his wife Patti Hansen were staying at the megastar-scale exclusive Wakaya Club where the likes of Rupert Murdoch, Bill Gates, Nicole Kidman and Celine Dion are all said to have stayed.

Guests with the energy to get up from their deckchairs could watch scarlet kula birds nibbling at coconut flowers, be tempted by the pineapples, bananas and papayas ripening in the sun or merely take in the scent of frangipani and ginger mixed with ocean air and money. A top price night on the island where the staff-guest ratio is 12:1 is more than £4,000.

Keith Richards in many ways epitomises rock and roll hedonism, although he differs in that he is still alive. He boozed and injected his way through the 1970s and was arrested in Canada in 1977 in possession of two ounces of cocaine and and the same quantity of heroin. He lived under the threat of jail while he sought addiction treatment in the US.

Spitting Image caricatured him as too stoned to realise he was dead and he inspired Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean.

The Stones’ Bigger Bang world tour has so far taken in the US, South America, China, Australia and New Zealand with 35 dates planned in Europe.