Jamie Dornan was taken to hospital while on holiday in Portugal after an encounter with “toxic caterpillars”, according to one of his friends.
Dornan’s friend Gordon Smart, 43, revealed the Tourist actor thought he was having a heart attack after coming into contact with the creatures.
Good Morning Britain presenter Smart explained that he, Dornan and other friends were just one day into their holiday when he himself felt “tingling in his left hand and tickling in his left arm.” He sought medial help and at hospital it was found that he had a raised resting heart rate.
When he was discharged, Smart arrived back at the hotel to find that Dornan was also hooked up to medical equipment with similar symptoms.
“It turns out we'd brushed up against hairy processionary caterpillars and have been very lucky to come out of that one alive,” Smart said.
Speaking on Scottish BBC panel show The Good, the Bad and the Unexpected, Smart said: “We had a great time the first day, played loads of golf, went out, lots of wine was drunk and then we got on to espresso martinis.
“Anyway, the next day, we played golf, we were all absolutely dreadful and I started to feel tingling in my left hand and then tickling in my left arm. I'm the son of a GP and thought, ‘This is normally the sign of the start of a heart attack.’
“Now, I'm a fairly healthy guy but once you start thinking, you're having a heart attack, you're pretty sure that you're convincing yourself that you are having one.”
Smart said he collapsed while he was at hospital, and woke up in a bed with a doctor asking him: “What have you been doing young man?”
Smart said he detailed the boozy day he’d had before, joking: “As a Scottish man in Portugal, when you start saying, ‘Well, I think there were nine bottles of white wine, I had six espresso martinis’ and I could see him shaking his head disgusted with the Scottish specimen in front of him.”
Speaking about when he got back to their hospital, Smart said Dornan said to him: "’Dear me. Gordon, about 20 minutes after you left, my left arm went numb, my left leg went numb, my right leg went numb, and I found myself in the back of an ambulance.’”
After they had both recovered, a medic informed them their experience may have been down to toxic caterpillars.
“And it turns out that there are caterpillars on golf courses in the south of Portugal that have been killing people's dogs and giving men in their 40s heart attacks,” Smart said.
The caterpillars have small hairs on their bodies that release a protein called thaumetopoein. In rare cases, the protein can cause an allergic reaction with similar symptoms to that experienced by Dornan and Smart.
Dornan is currently starring in BBC drama The Tourist - about a man who wakes up with amnesia in Australia following a car crash.
