Channel Seven star Kate McCarthy has detailed her life-threatening health scare after she collapsed at Melbourne Airport and was rushed to hospital.
The football commentator and former AFLW player, 31, had been in Melbourne for coverage of the AFL Grand Final before she was flown to Brisbane.
But before her return to Melbourne, two days after the Grand Final, Kate began to feel unwell on her flight.
“On the plane I was very, very sick, vomiting, it was not pleasant at all,” she said, according to the Herald of the sun.
The sports star added that he sat in the Melbourne airport terminal in a bid to feel better before seeking medical help from an airline crew member.
“They called an ambulance for me. “I thought an ambulance was a little excessive, but it was probably lucky that they called one in the end because when they arrived I was lying on the ground and not very well,” she continued.
Kate, who played in the AFLW for Brisbane, St Kilda and Hawthorn, was quickly hooked up to the monitors by paramedics.
It wasn’t long before she suffered ventricular tachycardia (a fast, life-threatening abnormal heart rhythm) and was rushed to the hospital.
Channel Seven star Kate McCarthy has detailed her life-threatening health scare after she collapsed at Melbourne Airport and was rushed to hospital.
“The paramedics started to get pretty urgent,” Kate said.
“They put defibrillation pads on me immediately and also injected me with adrenaline, but fortunately I lost my rhythm after two or three minutes.
“They took me to Royal Melbourne and I was there for three days having tests.”
Doctors told Kate they had no idea why she suffered this ordeal and that she would undergo follow-up tests with a cardiologist.
Last month, she was elated when Brisbane’s AFLW team beat the Adelaide Crows in a two-point thriller at home, but then McCarthy was left stunned by her ongoing health battle at the airport on Monday, September 30.
Kate McCarthy, who suffers from heart disease, had a scare after suffering an episode of ventricular tachycardia (VT) on Monday.
“When @brisbanelions and @lionsaflw double over the weekend it gives you ventricular tachycardia (a type of abnormal heart rhythm or arrhythmia),” McCarthy wrote on social media.
“Now we are improving, but the check on Monday night shows that the pacemaker acts like swans on the big stage.”
The scare comes when McCarthy has had a pacemaker since he was 12 due to childhood seizures.
McCarthy was initially diagnosed with “intermittent 3” heart block when he was a toddler and eventually had a pacemaker inserted in high school.
‘An ambulance arrived and I had a seizure in the ambulance, then another in the emergency department. “I think I had seven seizures that day,” McCarthy previously told The Associated Press. AthletesVoice.
In her days as an AFLW player, Kate McCarthy was an all-Australian representative when she was on the books of the Brisbane Lions.
‘When I had my seizures, I would lose consciousness for about 20 or 30 seconds while the seizure was happening, and then I would go back to normal.
‘I think the most worrying thing for mum and dad was that I really liked sport: I did triathlons, so I swam a lot and cycled.
“They were really worried about what would happen if something happened while I was swimming or cycling.
“So I had emergency surgery the next day, they put in a pacemaker and everything was taken care of from there. Since then it hasn’t happened again.
A qualified teacher, McCarthy represented the Lions, St Kilda and Hawthorn before ending her AFLW career in 2022.
She is now considered a rising football media star and is a key figure in Channel 7’s AFL and AFLW coverage.
McCarthy is earning plenty of plaudits as co-host of panel shows Armchair Experts and Talking W.
