Arnold Schwarzenegger recently opened up about a near-death experience, where he claimed that doctors made a grave mistake during a "non-invasive" surgery that almost cost him his life.
The 76-year-old actor was born with a congenital heart defect that has caused him to have three open heart surgeries in his lifetime thus far. “I remember when I had my open heart surgery, the third one, which was just a few years ago just before we started ‘Terminator 6,'” he recalled in a YouTube video. “I was really freaking out."
Arnold said that doctors appeared remorseful at the time. "I woke up and all of a sudden the doctors were in front of me saying, ‘I’m so sorry, but it was unlike what we planned.'”
He went on to explain that the prodecure became complicated when the medical team revealed they'd accidentally poked through the heart wall. The actor said that due to internal bleeding, the doctors “had to open [him] up very quickly to save [his] life." Even in the face of a near-death experience, Arnold wasn't determined to let it keep him down.
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“The bottom line is, you cannot roll the clock back. It was a disaster. I was in the middle of a disaster,” he said. “So now, how do I get out of it? You have to shift gears. Collect yourself, shift gears and say, ‘OK, what I need to do now is get out of this hospital.'” And he did that by walking 10 steps a day to taking full strolls around the hospital. He continued his recovery at home in enough time to begin filming the 2019 film Terminator: Dark Fate.
