Ex-Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman was rushed to hospital twice last month following fears he suffered a heart attack at home
- Broadcaster ‘seized’ by strong chest pain while ‘minding own business’ at home
- Paxman took a taxi to A&E as ambulance workers were striking on the same day
Jeremy Paxman has revealed he was rushed to hospital twice in two days last month following fears he suffered a heart attack while watching squirrels out of his window – before injuring himself again hours later.
The ex-Newsnight presenter said he was ‘seized’ by a strong chest pain while he was ‘minding his own business’ at home.
The broadcaster, 72 – who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2021 – said the incident happened while there were ambulance strikes ongoing in February, so he took a taxi to A&E with his partner.
To make matters worse, Paxman’s partner, book editor Jillian Taylor, 43, broke her ankle in a freak accident while popping back home to check on their dog.
And when Paxman finally got back to their London home the next day, he suffered another injury by his desk and had to go back to hospital.
Jeremy Paxman, pictured with a stick last year, has revealed he was recently hospitalised twice in two days following fears he suffered a heart attack at home while watching squirrels out of his window.
Paxman told Saga magazine that after he was patched up he looked like a ‘ninth-century Irish monk’.
He said: ‘I was minding my own business, watching a family of squirrels chasing up and down the tree outside my window when I was seized by a pain in my chest.
‘I have read enough to know that heart attacks are usually accompanied by pains down the arm, though I couldn’t remember which one.
‘Since both seemed to be in working order, I assumed I was all right.
‘Not all right enough for my partner, who, instanter, deemed I was in need of attention at the A&E department of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, where I was speedily admitted and examined by quite a charming German-born cardiac specialist.
‘There was a 24-hour ambulance strike that day, so I assume most of my fellow patients, like me, had been delivered to the hospital by taxi (by now it was past 10pm).
‘At midnight, my partner remembered we had left the dog at home, and Derek would be needing a bit of pavement or failing that, steps at the house of the hearest high court judge. She took a taxi home.
‘She emerged from the taxi to fall straight into a hole dug for gas-mains repairs, breaking her ankle.
The ex-Newsnight presenter said he was ‘seized’ by a strong chest pain while he was ‘minding his own business’ at home
‘After she passed an uncomfortable night at home, the fracture necessitated visit number two to A&E the following day.
‘That evening, I returned home to be told I was breathing oddly.
‘Suddenly, with no warning, I was attacked by my chair and thrown against the leg of my desk. There was an awful lot of blood on the floor and the back of my shirt. Back to A&E.
‘Sometime well after midnight, I was allowed home with my head glued together, looking all the world like a tonsured ninth-century Irish monk who had got involved in a rather vicious punch-up.’
Paxman revealed last year that his doctor diagnosed him with Parkinson’s disease after noticing that he was less ‘exuberant’ on University Challenge.
He said the diagnosis came when he was in hospital after collapsing while walking his dog in April 2021, and one of the doctors noticed his face had acquired a ‘Parkinson’s mask’.
‘Well, it was completely out of the blue,’ Paxman said of the diagnosis.
‘I was having a walk in the square across the way. There was ice around and I had the dog with me – the dog was on a lead. The first thing I knew was when somebody was sitting me on a bench. I’d fallen over and I made a terrible mess of my face.
‘I’d gone straight down on my hooter, which, as you can see, is not small. Cuts all over the place. I was a real mess. And when I was in A&E, a doctor walked in and said ‘I think you’ve got Parkinson’s’.
‘And it turned out that he had been watching University Challenge and had noticed that my face had acquired what’s known as the Parkinson Mask. I wasn’t as effusive and exuberant as normal. I had no idea.’
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