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Arnold Schwarzenegger recalls ‘unbelievable’ heart surgery ordeal in gripping graduation speech


Arnold Schwarzenegger is quite the storyteller (Picture: Intsagram/@schwarzenegger)

Arnold Schwarzenegger has shared a scary but inspiring story about having open heart surgery, as he delivered a speech to students graduating in 2020.

The Terminator actor posted a video of his epic address on Instagram, and it clocks in at almost 12 minutes.

The first part involves Arnie’s health scare – which occurred just before he started shooting Terminator 6: Dark Fate two years ago.

‘Congratulations to the class of 2020’, the 72-year-old began. ‘I’m not going to stand here and bullsh*t you about this being a fantastic time to graduate.’

After discussing coronavirus and life’s other inevitable obstacles, the movie icon shared his own story of beating adversity.

‘I got a physical,’ Arnie began. I went to the doctor and he checked me up, that’s what you always do before you start a movie. The doctor said “You’re in great health, but I’d recommend that you go and replace your heart valve. It’s leaking blood.”

’So I said, “I’m not going to have open heart surgery now, four months before shooting. Are you crazy?” I was just in the middle of working out with heavy weights, getting ready, doing my stunt training and everything.

‘He says, “No, no, the technology has changed. This is not open-heart surgery anymore. This is a non-invasive surgery that goes through your artery in the bottom up to your heart, replace the valve, and the next day you go home. A week later, you can continue with your regular training.”‘

He continued: ‘Then I remembered that a friend of mine, a 90-year-old producer, had the procedure done just recently. Two days after, he was at a meeting at a studio in Hollywood and he looked fantastic. So I said, “Okay, I’ll do it.”

’So after I woke up from the surgery,  I woke up 16 hours later instead of four hours [later]. And there was a tube sticking out of my mouth. The the doctor moved forward, took the tube and ripped it out of my throat. And I was coughing violently, and he says, “Just keep coughing. And then let us tell you what happened.”

Arnie in T6 (Picture: Paramount)

‘They told me they had to do emergency surgery, that something went wrong during his non-invasive procedure. And then it became very invasive. They said they broke through the heart wall and there was internal bleeding and I could have died if they didn’t open up my sternum and do open-heart surgery.

‘Imagine, the day before I was training really hard, and now all of a sudden he’s telling me they were saving my life. Then he says “You’re not out of the woods yet. There’s another danger. There are still patients in our heart unit here, who after heart surgery, pass away, not because of the surgery but because of the lung. They get pneumonia. So we’re really worried about you getting pneumonia.”

‘He said, “the only way you can really protect yourself is to do breaking exercises.”’

Arnie, whose other hit movies include Predator and True Lies, then explained that he had to do the breathing exercises while practicing walking with a walker. He called the experience ‘unbelievable’ but added: ‘My usual principles worked.’

He visualised himself on the set of the film on the planned date and ‘doing the fight scenes’, to help get him through the process.

Slowly but surely it worked, and he was eventually discharged and was able to start training with increasingly heavier weights at home.

After arriving on set in Budapest and filming a ‘wild’ fight scene, director Tim Miller told AS: ‘You’re a f***ing machine.’

The actor replied: ‘No. I’m just back.’

Amazing. Someone should make a film out of that story!

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