Jeremy Clarkson Underwent Emergency Medical Procedure After 'Sudden Deterioration' of Health

After a few weeks away from the public, Jeremy Clarkson announced in his Sunday Times column that he had successfully undergone emergency heart surgery.

Clarkson experienced his first signs of a potential heart problem over a single day while vacationing on an undisclosed island. The signs included having to study himself when he stood up too quickly from the breakfast table and being unsure about a dive that he performed multiple times and instead "belly-flopping" into the water.

Clarkson compared the signs to Earnest Hemmingway's words on bankruptcy: "It happens gradually and then suddenly."

Clarkson then rested for the rest of the vacation, dining on cheese and wine, potentially not the doctor-approved diet for a heart patient, but the Brit said that he spent the remaining days on the island relaxed.

Things turned worse when he got home to his Cotswold farm.

"Back at home, though, the sudden deterioration began to gather pace," Clarkson wrote. "I woke on Wednesday morning not feeling too good. I was clammy, and there was a tightness in my chest. Naturally, I ignored these things and, after loading 30 pigs into the slaughterhouse school bus, I noticed that I had pins and needles in my left arm."

This uneasiness was enough to force Clarkson's hand into a hospital visit at Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital. After almost being sent home since he didn't have any active signs of a heart attack, a doctor decided to do one final set of tests, placing Clarkson in an MRI machine, or he put it, "A big polo mint."

After looking in at Clarkson's heart, the decision was made to send him into operation to unclog his arteries, and the emergency surgery was performed.

Clarkson is now recovering at home, unsure why he felt the need to get checked out, but relieved that he did.

As Clarkson has more time at home after retiring from television, he's now looking at making better decisions about his life, leaving the cheese and wine on vacation and liking celery.

"I’m going to try to prove that aging doesn’t have to be gradual, then sudden," Clarkson lamented. "It can be gradual and then gradual some more."

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