There was nothing that iconic All My Children character Erica Kane couldn't survive, and it seems the same can be said for her longtime portrayer Susan Lucci. The actress shares that she is beyond grateful to be alive after a serious heart scare that landed her in the hospital.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the New York native reveals that she began feeling a tightness in her chest last fall that she initially ignored. "I told myself, it's nothing, it will go away," she shares. "And it did."
But the pressure returned a couple of times more, with the third time feeling like "an elephant pressing down" on her chest. The actress was shopping at the time, and luckily, the store manager drove her to a nearby hospital, because once she arrived, doctors found a 90 percent blockage in her heart's main artery, often called "the widow maker," and a 70 percent blockage in another branch.
"I was shocked," Lucci tells People in this week's issue, adding that she is lucky to be alive because, had she gone home, she likely would have suffered a significant heart attack or even sudden death.
Since her scary experience, the Emmy Award-winning actress has signed on as a national volunteer and spokesperson for the American Heart Association's Go Red for Women campaign and has decided to share her story as a way to help others who might experience similar symptoms in the future.
"I'm not a nurse or anyone who can help in any real way, but this is the way I can help. I can tell my story," she shares. "Everyone's symptoms are different but I felt compelled to share mine. Even if it's one person I help. That is someone's life."
For more about Lucci's scary life-threatening situation, check out EW's full story here.
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