"I thought I could do this, I'm sorry": Nat Barr breaks down on set
Sunrise star Natalie Barr broke down on set while sharing an emotional message urging Aussies to look after their heart health.
For the Heart Foundation’s annual Give With Heart Day, the star spoke about the impact of heart disease on her own family alongside Kylie Gillies and Larry Emdur on The Morning Show.
“I thought I could do this, I’m sorry,” Barr said tearfully.
“I’m sorry and I know you’ve just been through this Kylie like so many Australians, I’m sorry.
“So many Australians have this, it’s Australia’s biggest killer, 50 people are dying a day of heart disease. I don’t think we’re giving this the attention it deserves.”
Barr’s father Jim passed away 20 years ago from ventricular heart failure at the age of 61, in a tragedy that rocked her entire family.
Image: Natalie Barr
“Our family went through this 20 years ago, and like many, many Australian families it destroys your family and you never forget it and you never really get over it,” she said.
“So that’s why I’m supporting this cause because it’s just the hardest thing you ever have to go through.”
Dr Geoff Lister also made an appearance on The Morning Show, sharing how he had been training to be a cardiologist when he suffered three high-risk open-heart surgeries and two strokes.
Dr Lister said he had an aortic dissection, but was unaware of it prior to his first surgery.
“Out of the blue, I was refereeing a game of basketball, I’d been a previously well 24-year-old without any problems whatsoever, normal childhood and then suddenly I had a bit of tingling in my arm, and just on a whim with the support of some friends decided to go to hospital on the way home,” he recounted.
“Only because it was on the way home, it’s the only reason I went. If it wasn’t on the way home, I’d be dead.
“I walked into the emergency department and the pain was the most intense pain I’ve ever had, it’s so deep and essentially what the dissection is tearing of the large artery that comes out of the heart and supplies blood to the body.
“So it doesn’t take a doctor to know that once that tears, you’ve got seconds to minutes to live without urgent medical intervention or surgical intervention.
“Thankfully I was near a major transplant centre in Brisbane where I was able to receive, literally forty minutes later, my first open-heart surgery.”
Image: Seven