X-Factor judge Simon Cowell is lucky not to be paralysed after breaking his back in three places in a fall from his electric bike. Cowell, 60, who needed six hours of surgery, missed injuring his spinal cord by a centimetre. “He could have been looking at a life in a wheelchair,” a source told The Sun. The UK celebrity fell and broke his back after trying out a powerful new electric bike – and accidentally pulling a wheelie.