Jay Leno falls down a hill

Jay Leno has suffered a number of injuries after falling down a hill.

The 74-year-old comedian had been staying at a hotel that was at the top of a heightened area of land and hadn't realised just how "steep" it was when he decided to go to a restaurant that was located at the bottom of it and is now sporting a patch to cover his black eye.

He told TMZ: "I was staying in a hotel on a hill. There was a...I said 'Where's a good place to eat?' So the restaurant was there [ at the bottom]. To get to it, I didn’t have a car, so you had to walk about a mile and a half around. I said, ‘Well, the hill doesn’t look that steep. It’s about 60-70 feet. Let me see if I can go down the hill. I fell down. Boom, boom, boom. I rolled down the hill, hit my head on a rock, and knocked me in the eye."

The former 'Tonight Show' host had a show to do that night at the Yaamava' Casino in Southern California and went ahead with it despite his injuries before going to get checked out at the hospital.

He said: "I did the show and when we came back to LA I went to the hospital."

The incident comes almost exactly two years after he suffered second and third-degree burns on his face, chest and hands while working on car in his garage and clogged fuel line exploded.

He spent 10 days at a Los Angeles hospital and underwent a a surgical excision and grafting procedure.

At the time, he quipped: "The great thing about this age [is] you don’t learn by your mistakes, you just keep doing the same stupid thing."