Before planting her feet firmly in the country music scene, Dolly Parton almost toe-tally lost a part of her foot.
The legendary singer/songwriter, 71, recalled a childhood accident during her appearance on the Dr. Oz Show, which airs Thursday.
“I was probably about six or seven. I had jumped across the fence onto a broken mason jar and cut three of my toes, just my little toes on my right foot, almost off and they were just kind of hanging there,” Parton told host Dr. Mehmet Oz.
If that was not horrific enough, the country legends family did not have the means to get her to a doctor so her mother, Avie Lee Owens, stepped in with a painful DIY treatment.
“So they grabbed me up and all my dad and my brothers, they had to hold me down. Momma, she put cornmeal — now, you’re a doctor, you might know, I think the cornmeal was to absorb the blood,” the 11-time Grammy winner said.
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“They put kerosene on it for antiseptic and momma took her sewing needles — she used to make our quilts and stuff, and she literally had to sew my toes back on. But they worked and they healed and I’m still walking on them.”
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In December 2003, Owens died at age 79.
Over a decade later, Parton shared her poverty-stricken upbringing in the Smoky Mountains in the TV movie, Coat of Many Colors, which aired on NBC in December 2015. Singer Jennifer Nettles portrayed Parton’s mom.
“It brought us back together as family and made us miss mama and daddy a lot,” Parton told PEOPLE at the time. “They’re gone now, but we get a chance to see our brothers and sisters again and when we were little, and think of mama and daddy and all that they meant to us.”
The Dr. Oz Show airs weekdays (check local listings).
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