On stage, Judas Priest’s singer suffered an aortic aneurysm
Image credit: NME
Richie Faulkner, guitarist for Judas Priest, has opened up about the on-stage medical emergency that required him to undergo heart surgery last week.
The 41-year-old artist stated he had an aortic aneurysm that put his life in jeopardy. “My aorta broke and blood began to leak into my chest cavity,” he said in a statement to Rolling Stone. People with this don’t normally make it to the hospital alive, according to his surgeon.
On September 26, the band was performing at the Louder In Life Festival in Kentucky when the horrible occurrence occurred.
Faulkner miraculously finished the play before being transported to the nearby Rudd Heart and Lung Center at the University of Louisville.
He underwent emergency open heart surgery at the hospital, during which sections of his chest “were replaced with mechanical components,” he told Rolling Stone.
He went on to say, “I’m literally made of metal now.”
The remainder of Judas Priest’s US tour was then canceled, despite the fact that Faulkner’s partner, Mariah Lynch, informed fans that he was in “stable” condition.
“He’s so tough,” she said on Instagram, “that he finished the act and kept the hair flips coming.” “He’s the only one like him. Without him, we’d be lost. “
Faulkner said that he had “no history of a sick heart, no clogged arteries, no excessive cholesterol,” and that the aneurysm struck him “completely out of the blue.”
The artist, who joined Judas Piest in 2011, said he was trying not to think about what would have occurred if a specialist heart unit hadn’t been nearby.
The London-born musician has appeared on both of Judas Priest’s most recent studio albums, Redeemer of Souls (2014) and Firepower (2018), the latter of which charted at number five in the UK.
Judas Priest: 50 Heavy Metal Years of Music, a career-spanning box set, will be released on October 15th.