Drew Carey is opening up about his experience with a major health scare that he nearly didn’t catch.
While on a recent episode of the podcast Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson, Carey revealed that back in 2001, he unintentionally ignored the signs that he was having a heart attack and did not seek help right away.
“I was really overweight, and we were supposed to come back to start taping, so I thought I was going to start jogging," Carey recalled. "I had a little heart monitor, and I was jogging down my street, and my heart rate went up to something really crazy, and I was like, ‘Oh.’ And I felt numb in my shoulder, [and] all the things that I read were heart attack symptoms.”
However, Carey believed that if he were actually having a heart attack, he would have dropped to the ground, which he didn’t do.
Instead of going to the doctor, Carey continued jogging, then eventually went out to dinner with his-then girlfriend. At dinner, he had a meal that was not exactly heart-friendly: chili spaghetti.
The next day, Carey went to work on set as if everything was normal, but while in the writer’s room, he began to experience heart attack symptoms again.
This time, he knew it was time to go to the hospital.
“I went to step up the stairs to my trailer, and I really went like, ‘Oh boy, that was rough,'" he said. "And I got on the phone to the producer, and I said, ‘Hey, you have to call the ambulance, I think I’m having a heart attack.’”
Luckily, Carey was able to get to the hospital in time. He had a stent put in to prevent further problems.
"My joke used to be: [I had the] same thing Dick Cheney had, except they left my heart in," joked Carey, referencing the former vice president who underwent a heart transplant.
