MOLLY Meldrum’s doctors feared he would never walk again after his accident in Thailand.

However the TV icon has luckily avoided having serious spinal surgery.

An MRI showed Meldrum had dislodged a vertebrae in his spine and was just six millimetres away from being paralysed from the waist down.

Channel 7’s Nick McCallum was flown to Bangkok where he pushed Meldrum in a wheelchair to the area where he dodged a tuktuk and fell into the footpath.

Meldrum said he staggered up the stairs of his hotel where he collapsed in a corridor and was taken to a Bangkok’s BNH hospital.

The initial diagnosis was immediate emergency surgery to repair the crushed part of the spine.

“They said if I don’t do it could dislodge it (the vertebrae) and paralyse both legs,” Meldrum told Channel 7 news.

However over the weekend physio and rest saw his spine realign and now surgery is not necessary.

While Meldrum spent his 73rd birthday surrounded by friends and family in a Bangkok hotel, he returned to hospital yesterday.

The TV icon was hospitalised after intense nerve pain shooting up and down in his right arm and was monitored by his doctors.

Meldrum told McCallum he hates being in hospitals after the 2011 roof fall that saw him close to death and in an induced coma for five weeks.

“I get very stressed, I worry about my friends worrying about me,” Meldrum said.

The Countdown host has been recuperating in his Bangkok hotel with medical staff on call.

Despite rumours Meldrum was being sent back to Australia via Medivac for possible surgery he remains in Thailand where his progress is being monitored.

Channel 7 will screen the heavily-promoted Molly miniseries this Sunday night, with Samuel Johnson in the lead role.

After Channel 7 also began heavily-promoting their interview social media saw the network slammed for using the accident as another advertising tool for the miniseries.