Alison Hammond has said she feared she was having a heart attack on air when she had to rush off ITV's This Morning midway through the programme last week. The presenter appeared to clutch her chest as she left the show last Friday, and was taken to hospital to have a heart check-up. She turned out to have suffered a panic attack, and said the experience was "probably one of the most scariest things I've ever been through".
Returning for her weekly slot on Friday, she told viewers: "I couldn't catch my breath and I genuinely thought I was having a heart attack. I feel so thankful to God, to everything in life." She added: "It felt like a heart attack. It was very real." Alongside co-host Dermot O'Leary, Hammond introduced the programme by thanking him for holding the fort after her dramatic early exit, and also thanking everyone who sent good wishes.
She added: "It was the first time I've ever experienced anything like that. Secondly it was live on TV so I thought, oh my gosh, my son might be watching. I would never do that normally but I just couldn't catch my breath." The panic attack came on very quickly, she explained.
"It just was like a wave, something which I've now found out is adrenaline. I couldn't catch my breath and I genuinely thought I was having a heart attack." The experience has given her a new perspective on life, she continued. "I'm so happy that I'm here, and I'm so happy to see you," she said, putting both hands on Dermot's cheeks before hugging him.
"You were absolutely wonderful. And I'm so glad we're alive, and if anything it's made me look at life so much differently. Taking stock, look after my health.
I'm drinking a lot of water." The 51-year-old compared the feeling of the panic attack to crossing into a "surreal" place like the otherworldly Upside Down in TV show Stranger Things. "I felt like I went into the other world - what's that show that I loved? You know when you go into the Upside Down world?
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