Jerry Lawler Looks Back On His Near-Death Experience
Jerry Lawler has reflected ten years on from the harrowing moment that happened live on WWE Monday Night Raw when he nearly died at the announce table.
In Montreal, Canada on the September 10, 2012 edition of Monday Night Raw, Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler suffered a near-fatal cardiac arrest at the announce table next to his colleague Michael Cole.
Appearing on the Johnny Dare Morning Show, Jerry Lawler looked back at that event having made a full recovery, and makes clear that he did not have a heart attack:
“I always like to try to set the story straight, because everybody says that I had a heart attack. In reality, it was not a heart attack. It was a cardiac arrest, which are two totally different things. A heart attack is when you have clogged arteries and blood clots or something that stops up your veins or your arteries and that sort of stuff, and then your heart is damaged by a lack of blood flow or you can die from that.”
“But cardiac arrest is when, for one reason or another, your heart just suddenly stops beating. And only seven out of 1,000 people that have cardiac arrest survive, and the only ones that do is if they have immediate care because, technically, as soon as you have the cardiac arrest, your heart stops, and you’re dead.”
Lawler then explained how ringside doctor Michael Sampson leaped into action as soon as The King keeled over, saving his life:
“I just fell over out of my announcer chair, basically right in front of him, so, he realized something went bad, was wrong.”
On the night in question, Jerry Lawler competed in a tag team bout where he and Randy Orton faced Dolph Ziggler and CM Punk. Lawler explained how he believes receiving ten elbow drops from Ziggler contributed to what happened:
“I swear to God, I’ve told this story a million times, after the fifth elbow that he was dropping on my chest, I said to myself, ‘Whatever happened to the days that we used to do this and not kill each other?’”
The WWE Hall of Famer then commented on the only real damage done came about as a result of receiving life-saving CPR and says he has had no heart issues ever since:
“[The only discomfort Lawler had was] A very sore chest because they actually fractured one of my ribs doing the CPR stuff … because it happened so fast and I have no memory of any pain or any bad feeling about it. When I came back to, it was like it never even happened to me.”
“Until somebody else mentions it to me. I haven’t had any problems with my heart at all since then. So, no, I don’t even think about it anymore.”