On the mend. Bob Harper recounted the scary moment in February when he suffered a heart attack during an appearance on the Today show on Tuesday, April 4.
As previously reported, the Biggest Loser trainer, 51, had just finished a workout at the gym with his friends on Sunday, February 12, when he stopped breathing. Luckily, two doctors that were in the facility stepped in and he was given CPR.
“I was in full cardiac arrest. My heart stopped. Not to be dramatic, but I was dead. I was on that ground dead,” Harper told Today’s Savannah Guthrie. “I had what they call a ‘widow-maker.’ It was a 6 percent survival rate, and the fact that there were doctors in the gym when I had the heart attack saved my life.”
According to Today, Harper was administered a defibrillator, which gives an electric current to the heart, before paramedics arrived. Harper said that it was “super scary” and he was later “confused” when he woke up in his hospital bed.
“I was like Dory from Finding Nemo because I had this short-term memory, so I was reliving the heart attack over and over again. I was like, ‘Wait, why am I here? What happened to me?’ And 10 minutes later I was asking the same thing and getting super emotional,” he told Guthrie, 45. “It was hugely shocking for me. I’ve learned a lot about myself. I’ve learned a lot about the fact that genetics played a part in this. It is so important to know your health.”
Harper revealed that he had some “dizzy spells” before the incident, but didn’t give it a second thought. “Maybe I should’ve really taken that more seriously,” he said. “It’s been a huge wake-up call for me.”
Harper has since been sharing photos of his recovery on social media. Last week, he posted that he was gearing up for his cardiac rehabilitation.
