SAP boss McDermott loses eye after falling down stairs

SAP's Chief Executive Bill McDermott delivers a keynote speech during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona March 2, 2015.

/Albert Gea

The chief executive of SAP (SAPG.DE), Europe's biggest software firm, lost an eye and was briefly in life-threatening danger after falling down a flight of stairs in July, the company said on Thursday.Bill McDermott fell while visiting family in the United States over the July 4 holiday weekend and landed on a splinter of glass. A long operation saved his eye, but in the end doctors had to remove it due to an infection, SAP said. "I am still alive and that is not a given after such a serious accident," McDermott told German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, adding that it would not affect his work. (Reporting by Harro ten Wolde; Editing by Pravin Char)