Martin Roberts rushed himself to hospital after struggling to breathe and walk.
The Homes Under The Hammer star had to undergo an emergency operation after doctors found fluid surrounding his heart, as he admitted he was only hours from death if he hadn't sought treatment.
Doctors warned him he was lucky to be alive after they found a build up of liquid in the sac around his heart.
He explained how he was initially just struggling to breathe, but when he wasn't able to walk without having to gasp for air, he knew it was something more serious and he got his wife to take him to Accident and Emergency.
Explaining what first alerted him to feeling unwell, he told The Jeremy Vine Show: "I had fluid around my heart. I felt quite rubbish, I couldn't breathe very well and I automatically assumed it was just not being able to breathe very well. And so I sort of brushed it off, but when it got to the point I couldn't walk because I was gasping for breath, I got my wife to take me to A & E."
Martin appeared on the Channel 5 show today from his hospital bed in Bath, and he feels lucky to be alive.
Speaking about his illness, he added: "It's all relative isn't it? At least I'm alive! When someone tells you if you hadn't come in then who knows, an hour, two hours, twelve hours later, you could have been dead.
"Pushing you from one ward to another pushed by a man whose wearing a ghostbusters backpack, which assumingly is filled with loads of emergency equipment, it stops you in your tricks. Yeah I'm fine, I'm here."
Martin encouraged people to seek treatment if they felt unwell, as he admits he was close to death.
"As soon as I told them what was going on, 45 seconds later I was being taken through and it was nothing to do with my breathing. It was all to do with this fluid around my heart, which stopped the heart from working," he shared.
"The heart would have eventually stopped and there's no amount of cardiac resuscitation which would have helped with that or done anything because the heart was being strangled."
Martin worried fans yesterday when he revealed he had been rushed to hospital on the Wednesday after suffering issues with his breathing, although he now insists he is on the mend and doing well.
