Queen's Brian May 'could have died' after suffering heart attack
He underwent an operation earlier this month
Last updated 25th May 2020
Queen legend Brian May has revealed he was “very near death” earlier this month after suffering a heart attack.
The 72-year-old guitar icon posted a video to Instagram in the early hours of this morning (25th May) to confirm he “could have died” before doctors were forced to operate when they discovered he had three congested arteries.
Referencing Queen’s seminal third studio album from 1974, Brian wrote on Instagram: “Hmm ... Sheer Heart Attack eh? Well, I think I always worried a little bit about that album title. I wondered if it might upset some people who had actually had heart attacks. I’m actually quite relieved now that I’m in that club - and I don’t find it upsetting at all!”
In the seven-minute video, Brian opens up about the gardening accident he had at the start of May, where he tore his buttock muscle - the gluteus maximus.
"I had an MRI and yes I did have a rip in my...my gluteus maximus," Brian says in the video, and he explained he thought this was the cause of the pain he was suffering.
"I didn't realise that was amusing, really,” Brian says. “I kind of forgot anything to do with the bum people find amusing... but anyway, it turned out to be not really the case.”
However, a week later he was still in “real agony” and he had a second MRI: “I could not believe the pain. And people were saying, 'That's not like a ripped muscle, you don't get that amount of pain,' so eventually I had another MRI.
“But this time I had one of the lower spine and, sure enough, what did we discover but I had a compressed sciatic nerve, quite severely compressed, and that's why I had the feeling that someone was putting a screwdriver in my back the whole time. It was excruciating.
"So, finally, we started treating the thing for what it was. I'd been putting the ice packs in the wrong place for about ten days.”
Brian says in the video he’s “a lot better now” from the compressed sciatic nerve, however he added: “the rest of the story is a little more bizarre and a bit more shocking…
"I thought I was a very healthy guy. Everyone says, 'You've got a great blood pressure, you've got a great heart rate'. And I keep fit, I bike, good diet, not too much fat.
“Anyway, I had - in the middle of the whole saga of the painful backside - I had a small heart attack.”
Brian suffered "40 minutes of pain and chest tightness", so his doctor drove him to the hospital, where he found he had three blocked arteries.
“I actually turned out to have three arteries which were congested and in danger of blocking the supply of blood to my heart," Brian said.
"I had no idea, I had great electrocardiograms and whatever, you know. Nothing could tell me that I was about to be in real, real trouble, because I could have died from that, from the blockages that were there.”
Brian was given the option of a triple heart bypass or being fitted with three stents – tubes that keep blocked arteries open - and he opted for the stents.
Fortunately, after an "incredible operation" at the hospital, he feels much better: "When I came around, it was as if nothing happened. I couldn't feel that they've been in here, I couldn't feel anything.”
Addressing viewers of a similar age in their “autumn years”, Brian said: "What seems to be a very healthy heart may not be, and I would get it checked if I were you.
"I was actually very near death, but I didn't die. I came out and I would have been full of beans if it hadn't been for the leg."
Earlier this month, Queen + Adam Lambert release lockdown version of 'We Are The Champions, renamed 'You Are The Champions', to raise money for the World Health Organisation's coronavirus fight.
This song came just a few weeks after Queen + Adam Lambert were forced to reschedule their 27 date UK and European tour from 2020 to 2021.
On 15th May, Queen streamed the 1992 Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in its glorious entirety to raise money for coronavirus relief.
Everyone at Planet Rock wishes Brian all the best and a full recovery.
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