Kevin Smith was 'filled with a sense of calm' even as getting treated for massive heart attack
— -- "Clerks" filmmaker Kevin Smith says he survived a massive heart attack between sets at a comedy show in California on Sunday evening, and that the near-death experience filled him with a "sense of calm" about his "weird, wonderful" life.
The 47-year-old half of the comic movie duo "Jay and Silent Bob" appears to have kept his sense of humor, writing on Instagram, "I was trying to do a killer stand-up special this evening but I might've gone to far."
Smith said that after completing the first of two "Kevin Smith Live!" shows at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, he threw up, then "started sweating buckets and my chest felt heavy."
He said friends immediately called an ambulance and he was rushed to a hospital, where doctors cut into his groin to insert a stent into his blocked left anterior descending artery.
"The doctor who saved my life told me I had 100% blockage of my LAD artery ("the Widow-Maker”). If I hadn't canceled the second show to go to the hospital, the Doc said I would’ve died tonight. But for now, I'm still above ground!" Smith wrote in his post.
"This is what I learned about myself during this crisis: death was always the thing I was most terrified of in life," wrote Smith, whose father, Donald, died from a massive heart attack in 2003 at the age of 67.
"But even as they cut into my groin to slip a stent into the lethal Widow-Maker, I was filled with a sense of calm," Smith wrote. "I’ve had a great life: loved by parents who raised me to become the individual I am. I’ve had a weird, wonderful career in all sorts of media, amazing friends, the best wife in the world and an incredible daughter who made me a Dad."
Smith said he'll have to consider some lifestyle changed, writing, "Maybe it's time to go Vegan."
"But the point of this post is to tell you I faced my greatest fear tonight ... and it wasn't as bad as I've always imagined it'd be," he wrote.
In addition to "Clerks" and "Jay and Silent Bob" -- Smith wrote and directed "Chasing Amy" and "Mallrats," and owns a comic book store featured in the reality television show "Comic Book Men."
