NEWSKelsey Grammer Discusses Near-Fatal Heart Attack
July 24 2008, Published 4:00 a.m. ET
For the first time since suffering a near fatal heart attack last May, Kelsey Grammer is opening up to Entertainment Tonight about his terrifying ordeal in his first on-camera interview since that fateful day.
In the interview, set to air on Thursday, the Frasier star tells ET, "We originally said it was just a mild heart attack, and it actually wasn't very mild," he reveals. "They had to blast me twice and get me started all over again."
It was while paddleboarding with his wife Camille last May near their home off Hawaii's Kona coast that Grammer first started feeling symptoms. He was flown to a hospital in Honolulu and released several days later.
Of his near-death experience, Grammer says, "My heart stopped, and Camille was patting my head and she said, 'That's when you looked up at me and said, 'I'm going now.' And then off I went. And then she said, 'I'm going to need to zap him.'"
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Kelsey continues, "It felt like somebody was actually trying to tear my chest apart with the jaws of life. As I lay there dying, I said, 'Please, I can not do this. I don't want to see anything; I don't want to see any light; I don't want to have any little adventures that make me want to get out of this life. I need to finish this one.'"
Grammer says he is "doing fine" now and is slowly beginning to exercise again.
"I'm playing a lot of Wii!" he said.
The actor will next star in the political comedy, Swing Vote co-starring Kevin Costner which hits theaters August 1.
