Susan Lucci Recalls Near-Fatal Heart Attack: 'Like Elephant Pressing on My Chest'
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All My Children star Susan Lucci is well-known for her talent and strong persona on-screen, but off-screen, the award-winning actress has faced some health difficulties in recent years. Now, Lucci is openly talking about her experience living through a near-fatal heart attack in 2018 in a new interview.
Lucci spoke with News 12 Long Island about the ordeal, describing exactly what happened. She noted that the first sign was feeling a "slight pressure on my chest," but "like most women, I thought, 'Oh, it'll go away. Oh, it's nothing.'" The actress recalled experiencing the same thing another night, and then about a week later, she was at a store when, "Suddenly, I felt something that I could no longer ignore."
"Like an elephant pressing on my chest," Lucci said of the feeling, as she endured a serious heart health scare. As the manager of the store drove her to the nearby St. Francis Hospital, she called her late husband Helmut Huber's cardiologist, who said her symptoms were "substantial" and drove to meet her at the ER.
During her visit to the hospital, Lucci found out that she had a 90% blockage in her main artery and a 75% blockage in her adjacent artery. Thankfully, she was able to get it cleared and leave the hospital the next day, but if Lucci hadn't gone to the ER when she did, there was a big chance she would've experienced a fatal heart attack and not been able to recover.
As a result of her personal experience, Lucci is now focusing on how she can "pay it forward," encouraging everyone, but especially women, to "listen to your body, and if it's not behaving what's normal to you...go to the hospital or call the doctor."
The actress, who played fan-favorite All My Children character Erica Kane throughout the show's entire run, continues to tell her story and spread the message about heart health, partnering up with the American Heart Association as an ambassador.
