In a video he shares on social media, the British rocker admits he is grateful to be alive as he breaks down his medical adventures that led to the finding of three blocked arteries.

• May 25, 2020

AceShowbiz - Brian May has had a near death experience. Weeks after he was rushed to the hospital because of a gardening injury, the lead guitarist of Queen confessed that he suffered a heart attack during the recovery period which led to doctors finding out that he had three blocked arteries.

On Monday, May 25, the 72-year-old rocker posted a video on his Instagram account. "Titled My medical adventures," its caption read, "Hmm ... Sheer Heart Attack eh ? Well, I think I always worried a little bit about that album title. I wondered if it might upset some people who had actually had heart attacks. I'm actually quite relieved now that I'm in that club - and I don't find it upsetting at all !"

In the video itself, Brian recounted the events leading to his heart attack starting from his bizarre gardening accident. "I told you I had a ripped muscle and that was the way I was diagnosed and we thought it was like a bizarre gardening accident," he began. "I had an MRI and yes I did have a rip in my gluteus maximus and its so easy to make a connection, there's a rip there so that must be the cause of the pain, end of story. And no other tests were done."

"Now a week later I'm still in agony. I mean real agony. I wanted to jump at some points. I could not believe the pain," he continued sharing. "And people are saying 'that's not like a ripped muscle', so eventually I had another MRI. But this one I had one of the lower spine and sure enough we would discover that I had a compressed sciatic nerve, quite severely compressed, which is why I felt like someone had been putting a screwdriver in my back the entire time. It was excruciating."

Assuring that he is a lot better from his back pain, Brian pushed forth with his next health issue. "I was shocked, I thought I was a healthy guy. Everyone says I've got a great blood pressure and I keep fit, I bike, good diet. I had - in the middle of the whole saga of the painful backside - I had a small heart attack," he confessed.

"I say small, it's not something that did me any harm. It was about 40 minutes of pain in the chest and tightness. It's that feeling in the arms and sweating," he recounted. "And you kind of know, you've heard things and you think 'this is a heart attack'. To cut a long story short, my wonderful doctor drove me to the hospital himself and I had an angiogram."

Doctors soon discovered that the rocker had "three arteries that were congested and in danger of blocking the supply of blood to my heart." Though advised to undergo open heart surgery, he explained that he made a decision to instead put three stents inside his heart. "It wasn't that easy, but the only reason it wasn't easy for me was because of the pain, the excruciating pain I had in my leg," he said.

Having recovered from the procedure, Brian claimed that he "walked out with a heart that is very strong now." He went on to share, "I'm very grateful that I now have a life to lead again. I was very near death because of this, but the pain that I had was from something very different. It's funny how these things work. But I'm good." He then stressed, "Please don't send me sympathies, because I'm good."