'Days of Our Lives' Star Greg Vaughan Details Hospitalization After 'Severe' Sickness During Colorado Trip

PASADENA, CALIFORNIA - JUNE 24: Greg Vaughan attends the 49th Daytime Emmy Awards at Pasadena Convention Center on June 24, 2022 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)

Days of Our Lives star Greg Vaughan said there are times when he feels like he really is living in a soap opera—and this week, it’s easy to understand why.

Vaughan, who has played Eric Brady on the long-running soap opera since 2012, shared a health update with his Instagram followers on March 14 following an unexpected hospitalization in Colorado. The father of three was in the area with his children for a spring break getaway but began falling ill shortly after the trip began.

“I was feeling somewhat tired after 1day, experiencing shortness of breath climbing a few flights of stairs, wheezy, some congestion after some cold snowy conditions, and a headache developing,” Vaughan, 50, wrote in his Instagram caption, which accompanied a couple of photos showing Vaughan as he sat inside a medical facility. Despite his efforts to hydrate and battle his developing symptoms with an over-the-counter medication, Vaughan said he awoke to “coughing, dry heaving & my head felt like it was in a walnut cracker!”

After spending a second day feeling awful, Vaughan said he “finally surrendered” and decided to go to an urgent care facility, where he discovered that he was “experiencing severe altitude sickness!”

“My Blood Oxygen was at 54% & my lungs were full of fluids,” he wrote, explaining that a normal blood oxygen level for a healthy human is between 95 and 100 percent.

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All in all, Vaughan said the Colorado vacation was “nothing short of another great Vaughan adventure!” He jokingly began his Instagram caption with a famous quote from 1994’s Forrest Gump that he felt was fitting for his latest experience: “Life is like a box of chocolates, ‘you never know whatcha gonna get!’”

In a follow-up March 14 post, Vaughan shared a photo of his fitness watch, which showed his blood oxygen level was up to 94 percent. After receiving medical assistance at urgent care, Vaughan said he was encouraged to “immediately get off the mountain!” But that advice was tough for him to follow since he wanted his three sons to “enjoy their last day on the hill tops!”

“I opted to go home with an oxygen tank, a good laugh for everyone, and I know will follow, but my boys looked after their old man & fortunately they had friends on this trip,” he wrote.

Several people who have worked with Vaughan over the years—including fellow Days stars Alison Sweeney, Kristian Alfonso and Martha Madison—left comments to express their relief that he appears to be on the mend.

“I know you got at least 9 lives left, but take a breather,” wrote Robert Scott Wilson, another of Vaughan’s co-stars who plays Alex Kiriakis on Days of Our Lives.

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