UFC News: Randy Couture reveals how he has changed after his heart attack

UFC Hall-of-Famer Randy Couture suffered a cardiac attack on October 23 after a heavy training session and spent the next few days in the hospital recovering from it.

Couture opened up about the incident in detail for the first time in an interview on Ariel Helwani's MMA Show.

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Couture walked himself to the ER

Usually, someone in need of visiting the Emergency Room drives themselves there or calls an ambulance; but not Randy Couture. The former UFC walked himself to the hospital when he realized something was wrong with him after he returned from the gym.

"I knew something wasn’t right, because I’ve never been a puker. I went home and thought, ‘Ah, I just overdid it.’ (I) laid on the bed for five minutes or so, and this ache would just not go away. I said, ‘Man, something is wrong.'"

The doctors did some initial ECG tests and soon realized that their patient was, in fact, going through a heart attack.

"They rushed me right up stairs to the cath lab. (They) went in through my wrist. My thick blood had created a giant clot in my main artery – the ‘widowmaker,’ of course. I had a plaque rupture and the blood goes like it would with any wound to heal that wound. My blood is so thick it created a clot that occluded the whole artery."

A stent was inserted after the doctors sucked the clot out, and Couture was put on a blood thinner to further stabilize the plaque that had formed in his artery. He was discharged after he recovered fully and he went out the same way he walked in - on foot. He has been further recovering at home and has also returned to training. But the former Heavyweight and Light-Heavyweight Champion is overwhelmed by the love and support that he received from every corner of the MMA world during this time ever since TMZ first reported the incident, and acknowledged it on the show.

“By Thursday morning, it had gone public. TMZ did a thing on it and all that. My phone just blew up. It was amazing – overwhelming, the outpouring of love. I don’t even know what to say about that. It was pretty unbelievable. I appreciate all my fans and all the people out there that reached out to me.”

Couture has learnt that if he was another 30-40 minutes late in taking himself to the hospital, it could have turned out differently. Thus, he considers this incident to be a sort of reality-check, and it has made him much more thankful for what he has at the moment.

"Any time something like that happens, it certainly gets your attention... To have a eart attack was strange. It just chips away at your identity a little bit. Who you are. Who you thought you were. I’m certainly happy to be back, up, and running. I’m feeling a lot more normal. A lot more like myself.”