Duane Gill details his health scare from late 2020.
In November 2020, it was shared through Duane ‘Gillberg’ Gill’s social media pages that he suffered a heart attack. Gill opened up in detail about his heart attack, which he later discovered were heart attacks. He appeared on the MCW Cast and explained that he thought he was the healthiest he had ever been. When he first started noticing something off with his body, he went to the hospital and was diagnosed with acid indigestion.
Gill continued to work his non-wrestling job and would often find himself falling down or not being able to function due to the pain. He shared that while he was undergoing surgery, he woke up and the doctor let him know that he was suffering a massive heart attack in that moment.
I was actually, I thought in the best shape of my life. I had been working out [with] my son. I have a 32-year-old son and man, we were both looking great. I mean I was really doing good, I was 215 pounds and then I started getting, I thought indigestion and I’d be working out or whatever. It felt like acid reflex. It didn’t feel like — but you know you’re taught left arm, you know what I mean? This is gonna go numb. That’s what you’re taught is a heart attack. It didn’t feel nothing like it so for like a week or so, I’m, ‘Ah man, I can’t work out. I don’t feel right.’ So about two, three more days, it’s really hurting. I mean dropped me to my knees, oh my God, oh my God. So I’m at work one day and I can’t even work so I told one of the guys, ‘Look, take me to the hospital, drop me off. I’ll call you when I’m ready’ and I went in and they said, ‘Okay, we’re gonna admit you for the night’ and I was like, ‘What?’ And they said, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna admit you and run some tests.’ So they admitted me and ran tests on me, put radiation in my blood system, sent me through the tube, you know what I’m saying? The whole thing and they looked at me the next morning and said, ‘You got acid indigestion. Go home. Take a TUMS.’ Just like that. ‘Take a TUMS.’ So I said okay. So I’m thinking, ‘Okay, so I got TUMS and I’m going to work’ and I’m falling down on the job three, four times a day going, ‘Jeez, I can’t take it man.’ I mean, as a wrestler, your pain threshold is three, four times of what — you’re a female wrestler [Tara/podcast co-host], you know what I’m talking about and I was crying like a baby and finally, about three o’clock in the morning, my wife hears me out in the living room punching the floor because I’m trying to make my hand hurt worse than my chest. I couldn’t take it no more man. I was crying like a baby and she said, ‘What is wrong?’ I said, ‘I can’t take it no more. This is killing me’, little did I know and she said, ‘Come on, you’re going to the hospital.’ I said, ‘For what? Acid indigestion?’ And she said, ‘I don’t care what it is. You’re going back.’ She dropped me off, I walked in and the lady at the desk goes, ‘Oh, you’re back?’ I mean I had tears coming down. I said, ‘I can’t take it no more. I can’t take it. It’s too much’ and she said, ‘Well let’s give you EKG. I’ll just type in your name and everything will come right up’ and it all came up.
So I went right in and probably a minute-and-a-half after walking through the door, I was laying down getting an EKG. Girl turned on the machine, ran out. Came back with four other people, turned around and ran out. I’m like, ‘Okay, this ain’t good.’ Came back with a doctor and like six other people and the doctor looks at me and goes, ‘Mr. Gill, this is gonna be real fast.’ I said, ‘What’s gonna be –’ [Gill was put to sleep]. Well, my wife was parking the car. This is how fast it was. Before she could park the car, they already called her and said they were taking me to the O.R. So I woke up in the middle of the whole thing and I mean I could feel that I was being jerked like this but I couldn’t feel my body at all and my right arm was strapped down and I yelled, ‘What the [f*ck] is going on?’ You know, as loud as I could and the doctor leaned over and got like this far from my face and she said, ‘Mr. Gill, can you see and hear me?’ I said, ‘Yes ma’am I can.’ She said, ‘I’m trying to save your life. You’re having a massive heart attack.’ I went, ‘Okay.’ Never said another word man.
The day after his surgery, Gill was told that had more time passed without action being taken, it would have been fatal. He learned that those moments of pain he felt leading up to his surgery were heart attacks and he was just not aware it was happening.
The next day when she [the doctor] came in to see me, she goes, ‘Yeah, you were ten to 15 minutes, you wouldn’t be here with us no more’ and that’s when she broke out the pictures like, ‘Look at this. Look at this. Look at that.’ I was like [shocked]. She’s like, ‘One of your main clogs was in what we call the widow-maker’ and she said, ‘Now, how long were you feeling this?’ And I told her and she said, ‘How many times did you fall down on the job after you came to the hospital?’ I said, ‘15, 20 times over the next week’ and she goes, ‘You had 20 heart attacks and lived. Well 21 was coming to take you out.’ I was like ‘wow’, because I mean I’d be working, all of sudden it’d be like [the pain came]. Oh my God it hurt man. It hurt like no tomorrow and yeah, they put two stents in.
Gill has not wrestled since February 2020, but he makes appearances at conventions and does signings.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit the MCW Cast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
