A man has told how he suffered a SILENT heart attack and didn't even know until doctors told him as he needed checks for his "uncomfortable breathing".
Andrew says he did not feel any kind of pain at all despite doctors at Leeds General Infirmary tell him he had a "significant heart attack".
The 49-year-old was told he was in such grave danger he needed to be hospitalised immediately and told he would not be allowed to go home until emergency surgery was performed.
Andy, who has a diabetic condition that affects the nerves in his body, told Leeds Live: "I had a very very minor warning. It was a breathing complication.
"It built up over seven days. I had no pain and no symptoms at all. It was just uncomfortable breathing problem. So I came in and they said, I had had a heart attack."
Dr Betsy Evans, consultant surgeon who was tasked with saving Andrew's life together with her team said he could have dropped dead:
On an episode of Saving Lives in Leeds, she said: "He is an inpatient on ward 16, Type Two diabetes.
"He is just 49 and will need three bypass grafts. So there are three vessels that have narrowed routes.
"And therefore you have not got enough blood getting to that part of the body which is the heart muscle.
"If a patient needs triple bypass surgery they have reached the last point in the line for ischemic heat disease. So it's major.
"The sort of pain that you typically of describe in heart attacks doesn't always occur in diabetics patients. They can have what we call silent heart attacks.
"They are not aware of the classic symptom of central crushing chest pain. They could drop dead."
Andrew said he was excited about the future after spending two days in intensive care after finally getting surgery. He said: "I am raring to go. They extended my life.
"They have just said here you go. We have given you everything back. Go do something with it."
Dr Betsy said: "I love cardiac surgery because the amazing thing about the heart, is that it is an ingenious piece of engineering and despite what we do to it as cardiac surgeons.
"Once you recover the heart from the operation and allow blood to go into it again it wakes up as if nothing ever happened."
Andrew's treatment and surgery was chronicled on Saving Lives in Leeds, a documentary on BBC Two.
