Richard Bacon nearly died twice during his recent hospitalisation.
Last month, the 42-year-old TV presenter was rushed to hospital in London with a mystery illness, believed to be a lung infection, after getting off a flight from Los Angeles and Richard has revealed that the first two nights after he was admitted were the most dangerous.
Speaking to The Times Magazine, he said: "In 2018, I can go into a hospital, aged 42, be that fit, and have all that modern equipment around me and still nearly die? F*****g hell. I came that close. The first two nights, it was incredibly close."
And Richard called waking up from a medically induced coma "the worst day of my life" and said he was thrashing about "like a wild animal".
He explained: "I remember thinking: I’ve not got enough oxygen, the room’s too hot and I’m not getting enough attention.
"I need help. I remember consciously pulling the pipes out of my neck to set the alarms off. And it worked – people came running in."
Richard is grateful to have survived his ordeal and has vowed to give up alcohol and marijuana, which is legal in Los Angeles where he lives and works.
He said: "I’m giving up drinking. I had been drinking four or five’ glasses of wine every night.
"In LA, I’ve been smoking weed. It’s all legal over there. I’m going to stop all that."
And he recently explained that he was treating the near-death experience as a wake-up call.
Richard said: "I’ve decided to really, really embrace health from here on in.
"I’ve always drunk too much, I’ve always drunk too quickly, so I’m giving up drinking altogether forever as a result of what happened to me.
"Because if I don’t effect some sort of really, really positive change out of this, then it’s a giant waste of everyone’s time… So I’m using it to effect positive change.
"It’s something I’ve been thinking about anyway. I want to do something different, I want to look back in 10, 20 years and think ‘this was the moment I changed my life’."
Richard Bacon: ‘I was close to death’
