Watch Kevin Smith Recount Heart Attack Ordeal in New Video
Kevin Smith recounted his experience suffering a massive heart attack in a 19-minute video that the Clerks director streamed on Facebook. Smith, who suffered the heart attack following a comedy show Sunday night, admitted that when the symptoms began, “I just thought I got some bad milk. That was it.”
“I started feeling pressure on my chest, but not like, ‘There’s an elephant on my chest,’ I just couldn’t catch my breath. Honestly, I was never really in pain,” Smith said from his hospital room (via Variety).
“Even in the ER, they were like ‘How much pain are you in a 1 to 10,’ I was like, ‘I’m not really in pain.’ I just couldn’t catch my breath. So because of that, and because I’m 47, I didn’t piece together ‘heart attack,’ even when I was sitting going like ‘My chest is heavy and stuff,’ and even though my father died at age 67 from a massive heart attack and even though my mother has heart problems and she has two stents in her arteries in her heart, I never in a million years thought it was heart attack. Honestly, I thought I was mucus-y because I had two joints earlier in the day.”
Smith was then transported to the hospital, still unaware of the severity of his situation. Upon arriving at the Glendale hospital, it was “like all the shit you see on Grey’s Anatomy.” At that point, Smith fully realized he was having a heart attack.
Smith added that his biggest concern in the moments leading up to the life-saving operation was “shaving his groin.” “My biggest fear in life: Death, number one. People seeing my dick, number two,” Smith said.
“So they went in there and went up my leg and my groin and completely went in, they found the LAD [left anterior descending artery], it was 100 percent blocked, put a stent in, bam, here I am. Dude literally saved my life.”
While recovering from the close call, Smith read the social media response to his original heart attack announcement – “It was kind of like reading your eulogy” – as well as the non-controversy surrounding Chris Pratt, who came under fire from Smith fans after the actor said he was “praying” for the director.
“Poor Chris Pratt, one of my favorite actors on the planet, fucking put up a nice tweet, where he’s just like ‘Hey man, I don’t know you that much but I love Clerks and I’m praying for you’ and and apparently people were like, ‘Fuck your prayers’ and attacked him and shit,” he said. “Number one, thanks to Chris Pratt, how sweet was that, Starlord praying for me. Number two, please don’t fight over stuff like that. It’s a waste of time. Whether you’re religious or not, someone saying ‘I’ll pray for you,’ it’s good intentions.”
Smith added that he’s now doing well but he’s been forced to take time off from work; he was scheduled to direct the season finale of The Goldbergs, “unfortunately, this is gonna be preempt that. They want me to just sit around the house.”