Jeremy Clarkson has revealed he has had a heart procedure after waking up feeling ‘clammy’ with a ‘tightening sensation’ in his chest and tingling in his left arm.
The 64-year-old former Top Gear presenter said he was taken to hospital by ambulance before a stent was placed to open a blocked artery, leaving him thinking: “Crikey, that was close.”
Writing in his column in the Sunday TimesClarkson explained how he experienced a “sudden deterioration” in his health after a holiday on a small island in the Indian Ocean.
During the trip, he described having to “take a moment to make sure my limbs were working properly” before struggling to swim the length of two swimming pools.
“I was mostly dead. I’ve never had trouble swimming before, and now suddenly I can’t do it anymore. I also couldn’t go down a flight of stairs, not without holding someone’s hand.” he said. “I’m not exaggerating. These problems all manifested themselves in one day.”
The Clarkson’s Farm presenter, who lives in Chipping Norton, said his “sudden decline started to accelerate” when he returned home.
He said: “I woke up on Wednesday morning not feeling too good. I was clammy and there was a tight feeling in my chest. Naturally, I ignored these things and after loading thirty pigs onto the school bus at the slaughterhouse, I noticed that I had pins and needles in my left arm.”
Clarkson said he went to John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, where an electrocardiogram (ECG), blood tests and X-rays ruled out a heart attack.
But after further checks he went to an ‘operating room’, where doctors said Clarkson might be ‘days away’ from becoming seriously ill.
Clarkson said: “It appears that of the arteries that supply my heart with nourishing blood, one was completely blocked and the second of the three was going that way.”
He said a stent was placed in about two hours, which could save lives and stop future heart attacks by improving blood flow to the heart. “It wasn’t particularly painful. Just strange,” he wrote.
He said he was “wondering what water tastes like and whether it is possible to make celery interesting” after the health scare.
In 2017, Clarkson said he had to quit smoking after contracting pneumonia while on holiday in Spain.
Last month, Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May left their show The Grand Tour on Prime Video.
Clarkson, who recently opened a pub, the Farmer’s Dog, in Asthall, near Burford, has continued to present Clarkson’s Farm, where he runs his Oxfordshire farm, on Prime Video, as well as Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? on ITV.