Queen Guitarist Brian May 'nearly lost' his life after heart attack

 

Brian May 'nearly lost' his life after heart attack

By Amy Woodyatt, CNN

Updated 11:27 AM ET, Tue October 27, 2020

Brian May said he is "grateful" to be alive following several health scares this year.

(CNN)Queen guitarist Brian May has said he is "grateful" to be alive after suffering a heart attack, a stomach hemorrhage and other health complications this year.

In May, the musician revealed that he suffered from a heart attack that he believed he "could have died" from -- in addition to injuring his buttocks in a gardening incident earlier in the month.

May revealed that he was taken to hospital, where he had three blocked arteries. He said he was treated by medics as an "emergency case," and opted to have three stents -- short, wire-mesh tubes that act like a scaffold to help keep an artery open -- put in.

On Tuesday, the musician told television show Good Morning Britain he was grateful to be alive following the health scare, but revealed, "I nearly lost my life," following complications caused by medication he was taking to treat his heart.

Queen guitarist Brian May says he 'could have died' after he was rushed to hospital with heart attack

"It was pretty bad, and the complications that came afterwards were pretty bad," he said of his heart attack.

"It's been a big mountain to climb to get back up to strength again but it's become my new religion, really. I just exercise, I do my cardio rehab every day," he said.

But May thinks he is on the mend. "I'm getting strong. I'm going to be Ironman soon."

"I'm so grateful to be alive, because a few years ago, that couldn't have happened. I had three stents in me, which are working just fine, and I feel good," he said.

But it hasn't all been plain sailing -- the musician revealed that as a result of medication he was taking for his heart condition, he suffered a range of complications including a stomach hemorrhage.

"I lost an awful lot of blood all at one time and just was wiped out. [I] couldn't move. [I] couldn't get across the floor," he said.

"I had a bit of bad time all around... a catalog of disasters, I had sciatica as well. I'm not quite sure how I got that," he said, adding that the pain was "excruciating."

"The actual heart operation was a doddle compared with the sciatica," he said.

May also speculated that he could have contracted coronavirus, saying it was "possible," and his heart doctor was not ruling it out.