Frank Gardner broke hip weeks before BBC Hamza apology to Queen By evening, I was feeling really rough. I didn't know it, but I'd lost two pints of blood from the fracture. He was driven to the nearest accident and emergency ward by some friends, and an x-ray confirmed he had suffered a fracture. But surgeons were unable to operate "because of all the metalwork put in in Riyadh after I was shot," he said. "The nurses were lovely, but the hospital said that the Welsh ambulance service would not travel outside Wales, so I ended up discharging myself and escaping in a friend's car to get the operation down in London," he added. Mr Gardner was able to continue working as a security correspondent despite suffering severe spinal damage in the attack eight years ago. He is also said to have learned to ski again. Yesterday he claimed in a conversation he had with the Queen several years ago that she had spoken of her frustration that Hamza was still at liberty and spreading messages of hatred. Within hours of his revelations, the BBC wrote to Buckingham Palace apologising for breaching the confidence of a private conversation.