Richard Madeley opened up about a harrowing near-death experience in which he came perilously close to choking on a chunk of undercooked beef during a dinner.
The 70-year-old television presenter, best known for co-hosting This Morning alongside his wife Judy Finnigan during the late 1990s, told Dr Hilary Jones he had swallowed a piece of “very rare beef” without properly chewing it while engaged in animated conversation.
The meat became lodged directly in his windpipe.
His sister Liz Lawrence, who had training in the Heimlich manoeuvre, ultimately saved his life after several desperate attempts to free the obstruction.
“If she hadn’t known what to do, I would’ve died,” he said.
Recounting the ordeal, Mr Madeley described how his attempts to dislodge the meat were futile because there was no air in his lungs to produce a cough.
“I suddenly realised I was choking,” he explained.
Chaos broke out around the table as fellow diners rushed behind him and began striking his back, but the beef refused to shift.
As roughly two and a half to three minutes elapsed, Mr Madeley said he began experiencing the terrifying sensation of losing consciousness.
“I began to feel my world closing in, black dots coming on the side (of my eyes). I began to feel very weak and a calm sense of acceptance coming, ‘oh, this is it, this is how I’m going to go,'” he recalled.
Ms Lawrence had been in the toilet when the emergency began and dashed back to find her brother in dire straits.
She performed the Heimlich manoeuvre, which is a technique involving abdominal thrusts, named after thoracic surgeon Henry Judah Heimlich, three times in succession, but the blockage held firm.
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Mr Madeley described feeling his legs buckle beneath him.
“I felt my knees give way and I went down and as I went down, thank God, she did it again,” he said.
It was the combination of his body dropping and Ms Lawrence applying greater force than before that finally freed the piece of beef.
A small amount of air reached his lungs, enabling him to cough the meat up.
Within ten seconds, Mr Madeley said he had regained full awareness, although he acknowledged the outcome had been desperately close.
Mr Madeley has long been candid about his approach to health and wellbeing.
His grandfather, father and uncle all suffered fatal heart attacks, which he has said makes him particularly mindful of looking after himself.
A former heavy smoker, he gave up the habit more than two decades ago.
He also keeps a close eye on his diet and maintains an active lifestyle, estimating that he covers upwards of 10,000 steps daily.
Describing himself as “an inveterate walker”, he said: “I’m on my feet a lot and I walk a lot, I don’t do a step count, but I’m sure I do over 10,000 steps a day.
“We all know that walking is one of the most effective exercises you can do.”
His children, he added, find his refusal to sit still rather irritating.
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