A Southport man who suffered a heart attack while getting ready for work says he wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for his bathtub.
On December 17, 1992, Fred McCann, 78, was in the shower when he suffered a heart attack and collapsed.
But his life was saved after falling at the “perfect angle” which meant his chest hit the bathtub – a move he claims “boosted” his heart and saved his life.
“The consultant told me that (if I had fallen in the bathtub) a little higher or lower wouldn’t have worked,” he said. Liverpool Echo.
32 years after his near-death experience, Fred says he celebrates a second birthday or “rebirth” every year on December 17 to commemorate the day his bath saved his life.
“If the King can celebrate two birthdays, it seems fair that I do it,” he said.
Fred suffered a heart attack just weeks after he began experiencing chest pains.
Although he was initially told he had a hernia, Fred found himself collapsed on the bathroom floor.
On December 17, 1992, 78-year-old Fred McCann was in the shower when he suffered a heart attack and collapsed. But he says his bathtub saved his life.
Fred says he fell at the “perfect angle” which meant his chest hit the bathtub, a move he says “boosted” his heart and saved his life.
He was able to dial 999 and was rushed to hospital, where a doctor saw the huge bruise on his chest and told him the fall had saved his life.
Fred’s story comes as a major study recently revealed that people who become ill with Covid are at increased risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Using data from more than 200,000 UK people with an average age of 67 who contracted Covid in 2020, researchers found that the sicker someone was, the more likely they were to develop heart problems.
Overall, being infected with Covid doubled someone’s risk of having a heart attack or stroke at least three years after the initial infection.
And patients who were hospitalized because of the virus were four times more likely to develop cardiovascular disease than those who did not contract it.
This new research comes as other doctors look for clues about why fatal heart attacks have increased in people under 45. Some point to the Covid virus as the cause.