Homes Under the Hammer star Martin Roberts has been given new lease of life after an undiagnosed issue with his heart led him to being told he had 'less than a few hours to live'. Now, a year on, he has opened up about his life-saving surgery.
The television star, who has also appeared on ITV's I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! was rushed to hospital last year after a build up of fluid around his heart expanded, causing a great deal of pressure on his heart and pain - read more on that here as he gave Good Morning Britain an update on his health at the time.
Now, in a new interview, the 59-year-old has given details of the procedure that saved his life and explained how, had it happened three weeks earlier, he'd have been dead.
Speaking to The Sun's TV Mag, Martin said: "A year ago, I had a problem with my heart that hadn’t been noticed. The sack around my heart had expanded and was putting pressure on the heart. I had less than a few hours to live.
"I was rushed into hospital and had an emergency operation where they stabbed a tube into the sack around the heart and drew a litre and a half of fluid. Had I not been in the right place… Three weeks earlier I was on the road in a transit van and if it had happened then, I would be dead."
In April of last year, Martin revealed that his blood pressure had dropped drastically - half of what was expected of a healthy person, reports Birmingham Live - and explained, at the time, to the GMB hosts just some of the symptoms he'd been feeling ahead of being rushed to A&E. He revealed he'd experienced "a real tightness in my chest and difficulty breathing". Alongside blood pressure, he also explained how his liver and kidneys had dropped to 30% of their standard capacity.
He added: "I am aware of the signs of a heart attack, which is those things but with tingling and things. So, like a bloke I thought I'll just make it through the week.
"By the time it got to Tuesday, Wednesday, I was feeling so rubbish that my wife took me to A&E, and basically I was rushed through A&E and, to cut a long story short, they found that I'd actually got water or liquid around my heart, which was compressing the heart to a point where at any point it could have stopped.
"Unlike a normal heart attack there is nothing you can do about it. You can't do the whole defibrillator or chest massage, because the heart itself is literally being strangled. So, within three to four hours I was on an emergency operating ward, having a tube put into this sack around my heart and they drained off a litre and a half of fluid that was literally sort of strangling myself."
After this ordeal, during which he was awake and witnessed the whole procedure, he told The Sun that he had grasped life by the horns and, in doing so, decided to sign up to a brand new television show on E4 called The Big Celebrity Detox (which begins on Monday, May 15, at 9pm on E4), willing to "try anything". Read more on the show here.
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