Today on ITV1’s This Morning, footballing legend Stuart Pearce described the medical emergency he experienced when 30,000ft in the air whilst flying home from Las Vegas.
Former England star Stuart exclusively joined hosts Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley live in the studio, alongside his wife Carol, as he recalled: “At the airport my chest felt tight, a little bit heavy. I thought it might be indigestion or something of that nature, I got on the plane and it felt as though someone was sort of sat on my chest.”
“So after a couple of hours, I tried to sleep it off to be honest, and I should have picked my wording slightly better, I said to Carol, I said, ‘I don’t think I’m going to make Heathrow’ [but] I meant without telling the air crew!”
Stuart admitted, “My resting heart rate was 155 upwards…” and said: “It was as though, when you did breathe in, it wasn’t sufficient for the demand.” During the flight, the plane was safely diverted from London to Canada where Stuart was taken to hospital and his heart was able to be stopped and restarted again.
Stuart explained that he had no health concerns or history of medical conditions in his family and Carol admitted it was “very unusual” for him to complain of not feeling well. She added: “For him to say he’s in pain, that immediately made my blood run cold, because you think, ‘Okay, this is, this is serious’. Stuart doesn’t do being ill, he doesn’t do making a fuss. He played with a broken leg! So, I knew it was serious when he said to me, ‘I’m not going to make Heathrow’.
Crediting the crew on board the plane, Stuart told Ben and Cat: “They were magnificent on Virgin. I’ve got to say, one of the stewardesses came and sat next to me and went through the procedure they’ve been trained [for]. We travel a lot, so going forward, it really puts my mind at ease. If you are traveling, you’re in really good hands, even if you’re up in the air.” During an emotional moment in the interview, This Morning reunited Virgin cabin crew manager Zoe Anderson, who was on board when Stuart fell unwell, with the couple on the sofa.
Zoe explained: “[Stuart] said your pain was about eight out of ten, which started to raise some alarm bells so we needed to act on that.” She added: “We had Stuart hooked up to an ECG monitor… So we were able to send that straight down to the doctor that I was speaking to. We had all of that information to relay back and forth, we did a few different readings and when they said that all of them were abnormal, we made the decision that we didn’t want to be half way across the Atlantic [Ocean].”
Stuart said: “I was sort of in and out of consciousness. I was sleeping and then waking, sleeping and waking, and then next thing we know, we’re landing in Newfoundland” and shared that: “They think it was just a virus that affected my heart.”
Stuart thanked Zoe and the rest of the crew: “I can’t speak highly enough of the crew. Quite incredible honestly, I always felt as though, if you get ill on an airplane. Worst place in the world to be ill, but it’s sort of given me a new found rest assuredness if you like.”
“We can only as a pair, say thank you very much. The professionalism that you showed on the day was brilliant. I was reasonably calm I’m sure but if you’ve got passengers that are very nervous, and this sort of thing happens, that level of composure and the backup of the training as well… You said, ‘No it’s ok’. You fully assured me, ‘We’ve been trained at this, it’s not a problem’. Credit to [them.]”
This Morning airs weekdays from 10am on ITV, ITVX, STV and STV Player
Catch up online: itv.com/watch/this-morning
