Homes Under The Hammer presenter Martin Roberts says he has ‘irrational fear’ he is going to die

Martin Roberts said he has an “irrational fear” that he could die at any moment after being rushed to hospital for emergency heart surgery last year.

The Homes Under The Hammer presenter, 59, told The mirror that he has struggled to mentally come to terms with his health scare in April last year, which shows that he can’t help but think about the ‘what ifs’.

He said, ‘The mental recovery is that fear that that happened, will it happen again? Suddenly it’s Monday morning, am I going to die?’

“That slightly irrational fear, but when you’ve been through what I’ve been through, it’s hard to move on.”

The presenter underwent life-saving surgery last year after mistaking chest pain for long-term Covid.

But Martin discovered he was suffering from pericardial effusion, a buildup of fluid in the structure around the heart, and had emergency surgery that saved his life.

Speak against The Sun’s TV MagMartin said, “A year ago I had a problem with my heart that went unnoticed.

“The sac around my heart had expanded and put pressure on the heart. I had less than a few hours to live.

“If I hadn’t been in the right place… Three weeks earlier I was on the road in a van and if it had happened then I would have been dead.”

Martin added that his health anxiety made him want to “try everything,” so he signed up for the E4 series The Big Celebrity Detox, which sees stars try therapies, including drinking their own urine.

In the debut episode, Martin admitted that he had been “turned upside down” by his health anxiety.

While introducing himself during the grueling show, which came with a warning to viewers not to try the chores at home, Martin reflected on his “terrifyingly awful year.”

He said, “This year has been a terrifyingly horrible year for me. A few months ago I had a near-death experience and it touched me deeply.

“I actually want this to make a difference, do I think it’s going to happen? The jury is gone.’

Throughout the first episode, Martin took part in a series of extreme tasks, including drinking his own urine and digesting seeds that induce vomiting.

However, the real estate expert remained unconvinced by the effects of the challenges and expressed his feelings to spiritual expert Sah D’Simone.

When told the first task would be drinking his own urine, Martin shared his doubts about the very unique challenge.

He said, “How can something that your body throws out as a waste product be good for you?”

Despite his concerns, Martin took part in the challenge alongside his co-stars, including Kerry Katona, Megan Barton-Hanson and Princess Olga Romanoff.

Martin previously described his terrifying ordeal in hospital on This Morning, telling Phillip Schofield and Rochelle Humes: ‘I’ve been feeling a little bad for a few weeks, under the weather. I’ve had a few respiratory infections over the years and I’ve had asthma since childhood, so I’m used to a pretty tight chest.

“As the Easter holiday weekend approached, things started to get really bad. I could barely walk without gasping for breath.”

He added, “The confusing thing about this, it’s a bit of a distraction, is it gets you into the breathing side of things so you don’t think it has anything to do with your heart.”

“You think, ‘It must have something to do with my chest.'” Then it’s the dangerous thing about playing Google doctor.

“It seemed like it could be the symptoms of a long Covid – real lethargy, chest tightness, chest pain, difficulty breathing, so you pause and pause and by the time it’s just after the official holiday is the weekend, I started delirious, misdirected letters, I said to Kirsty, “We have to go to the hospital.”

His wife Kirsty added: ‘Really worrying. We are thankful that we went to the ER then.’

Pericardial effusion causes excess fluid to clog the sac around the heart known as the pericardium.

Symptoms may include shortness of breath, chest pain, discomfort when breathing, feeling light-headed, or swelling in the abdomen or legs.

While the condition can be treated with medication, in severe cases, doctors may perform surgery to drain the excess fluid.

Martin explained that he needed surgery because the fluid buildup had put so much strain on his heart, causing organ failure.

He said to Phillip and Rochelle, “There’s a sac around your heart and it filled with fluid, it’s called a pericardial effusion and that in turn is something called a tapenade, which basically means that this sac is filling the heart compresses what it’s wrapped around, so the heart can’t expand and therefore can’t pump, so it means all your organs are starting to fail.

“By the time they got to me, my kidneys were at 30 percent, my liver was at 30 percent, my lungs were deprived of oxygen, and at any time I could have had a heart attack…. The heart would have been strangled by itself.’

He added, “We’re talking minutes of life stroke hours.”

When asked what was going through his mind, Martin replied, “You just put your life in the hands of professionals. I’m lying there in the specialized cardiac drainage unit – there’s a special operating room and there’s local anesthesia.

“I watch as they put a tube in the side of your heart and then with a big syringe, he starts sucking up this dark red/black fluid, which is almost, I call death fluid, pulls it out and puts it in a plastic cup, pulls another and squirts it in and I just sat and watched…”

Phillip asked Kirsty if her husband’s ordeal had triggered a reset for them, and she replied, “Totally. We said this, right? I sent Martin a card when he came out of the hospital and I said, “We need to look at this as a turning point.”