Duncan Bannatyne almost dies after being bitten by a dragonfly

Entrepreneur and Dragons’ Den star Duncan Bannatyne nearly died after being bitten by a dragonfly. The businessman revealed that he was on a trip to Mexico when he was bitten by the flying bug.

The 75-year-old says his hand became infected and left with a severe and potentially fatal allergic reaction. “I almost died in Mexico, just a few weeks ago,” he said.

“I have this infection in my hand. It was a bite and it swelled up. There were seven couples and one woman said “you need to get a doctor”. Duncan was traveling with wife Nigora, 44, and called for help. “My wife called the doctor,” he continued. “I lay on the bed and he says he’s going to give me an injection because it’s a dragonfly. He injected me in the hip and I’m turning on my back.

“I was laying there, he was talking to my wife, and I got this dryness through my esophagus. I was so dry and could not speak. And my heart started – bump, bump bump bump bump, bump, bump.” The doctor had not left the room and knew what had happened. He gave me this injection and took it away. And then they got some pills from the pharmacist.”

“I’m meeting with someone this week who is planning my will,” he told BBC Radio 4’s The Bottom Line: Decisions that Made Me a Leader podcast with Evan Davis. “And when I leave what happens.” He adds: “I’m sure at some point in your life someone who is very old says, listen, when I die, I want you to do this.”

He says no one wants to talk about death. “Except now I want to do it, I want to put the plans into action.” Duncan is estimated to be worth over £400m and has six children and several grandchildren.

Duncan and first wife Gail Brodie married in 1983 and had four children, Hollie, Abigail, Jennifer and Eve, before separating in 1994. With second wife Joanne McCue he had two more children, Emily and Thomas, before getting divorced.

Duncan met former translator Nigora, from Uzbekistan, in June 2015 when she was working at a dental practice in London. We’re starting to think about it now,” he says. “I was talking to my wife. We will be doing medical missions with Operation Smile which operates about 25 children with clefts, so I will fund a mission.”

“It’s amazing,” he says. “For about £1,000 it changes the whole family’s life, you know, because there are countries where children are hidden.” Duncan’s early years were spent growing up relatively poor in Clydebank, one of seven children with his working-class father.

He asked for a paper tour in the corner store to get some money in hopes of buying a bike. But while the store owner said there were no free rounds, he suggested another plan. Duncan added: “He said, ‘You can go and get your own paper if you want, go and knock on doors and get more people. Get 100 names and I’ll give you a round of paper’. And so I did. I spent two days after school going around and knocking on doors. I have 100 names.”

Duncan was on a trip to Mexico with wife Nigora (Image: Daily Mirror)

And he adds: “I bought my bike about six weeks later.” The business case bit, but Duncan faced other challenges with undiagnosed dyslexia. “All my life I’ve been thought of as a bit slower, with a learning disability or a bit stupid. And I was terrible at school. I didn’t know until another 30 years later that I had dyslexia,” he says. “It’s very different to my dyslexic son today and he has dyslexia lessons and it’s great.”

He joined the Royal Navy but was discharged after a fistfight with an officer. He bought an ice cream van, then moved into nursing homes before finally starting the health clubs that made him famous. The idea came to him after a skiing accident that tore ligaments in his leg and he needed to find a place to rebuild his muscles.

• Duncan Bannatyne’s full BBC Radio 4 interview The Bottom Line is also available on BBC Sounds now