Jeremy Clarkson has shared a health update just months after the former Top Gear host underwent urgent live-saving surgery on his heart in October.
The Clarkson’s Farm host, who recently cut his professional ties with Grand Tour co-stars Richard Hammond and James May, has said a doctor told him he was “maybe” days away from dying.
Clarkson first started struggling while swimming from a boat to the beach while on holiday on a small island, explaining that: “It wasn’t far, maybe the length of two swimming pools. But when I finally reached the beach, there was more water in my lungs than there is in Lake Superior, and I was mostly dead.”
His worries were heightened when he struggled to walk up the stairs without holding somebody’s hand. He told The Sunday Times: “I’m not exaggerating. These problems all manifested themselves in one day.”
While filming new episodes of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, the 64-year-old gave fans an update on his new routine and his new diet, reports the MailOnline.
Clarkson said: “My phone flashed up this morning saying: ‘You are taking far fewer steps this week than last’. I thought, ‘Yeah I would be as I am sitting here’. It also says you are eating far fewer sausages. I just sit here and eat celery. I am feeling better on it. I do feel very well.”
Clarkson added that he’s also said that he’s now been seeing a dietician. He said: “‘I have been to see a dietician. The dietician has given me a pretty good list and said: ‘Don’t eat processed food.’ If it’s got more than one ingredient in it, don’t eat it.’ I feel great.”
Clarkson said that the “sudden deterioration” that “began to gather pace” left him especially concerned after the death of Alex Salmond from a heart attack.
However, after having several checks, including an electrocardiogram (ECG), the presenter was told he was not having a heart attack – but that he was “maybe” days away from death.
Clarkson wrote: “It seems that of the arteries feeding my heart with nourishing blood, one was completely blocked and the second of three was heading that way.
“So he made a hole in my wrist, inserted his Dyno-Rod equipment and went in for a closer look. The question was this. Were the arteries so ruined that I’d need an emergency heart bypass? Or could he use his Dyno-Rods and some ultrasonic battering rams to loosen them up before inserting a stent?”
Clarkson said that “mercifully”, the doctor was able to insert a stent, which he said “wasn’t especially painful – just odd”.
