Inside urgent heart operation Jeremy Clarkson underwent while Grand Tour star reveals 's*** week' as his DOG also goes under the knife By Megan Howe Published: 10:54, 20 October 2024 | Updated: 11:16, 20 October 2024 e-mail View comments Jeremy Clarkson has compared having a stent fitted to someone putting 'a Hoover pipe up my arm' while doctors got 'busy inside my heart with a B&Q chisel', as he underwent an urgent heart operation after a deterioration in his health. The former Top Gear host, 64, feared he was just 'days away from death' following a string of health scares which led up to his most recent procedure. The TV presenter complained of feeling 'clammy', having 'tightness in my chest', and 'pins and needles in my left arm', which led to him being admitted to John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.
Once there he was fitted with a stent to his hold his arteries open, to improve blood flow to his heart and relieve his chest pain. A stent is a wire mesh tube that props open arteries. To open the narrowed artery, the surgeon may perform what's known as an angioplasty.
This involves making a small incision in a patient's arm or leg, through which a wire with an attached deflated balloon is thread through up to the coronary arteries. Writing in The Sunday Times , Clarkson said the operation took around two hours and 'at one point it felt like he's put a Hoover pipe up may arm, along with a pile driver, and was busy inside my heart with a B&Q chisel and hammer gift set'. He admi.