Brian May thanks fans for “torrent of love and support” after heart attack

Brian May is thanking his lucky stars – and his fans – after he suffered a “small heart attack” that left him “very near death” following a gardening accident which also saw him tear his buttocks muscles and admitted to hospital.

“I had – in the middle of the whole saga of the painful backside – a small heart attack,” May explained of the health scare earlier this week. “I say small, it’s not something that did me any harm. It was about 40 minutes of pain in the chest and tightness. It’s that feeling in the arms and sweating.”

The Queen guitarist has since thanked fans for their “overwhelming love and support” after he opened up about his medical scare, in which doctors discovered that three of arteries in his heart “were congested and in danger of blocking the supply of blood to my heart.”

“I’m overwhelmed and really, more than touched by the torrent of love and support that’s come back at me after all the incredible coverage in the press, I really didn’t expect all that,” May said in a heartfelt video posted to his Instagram page. “As you can see I’m OK… my email box and everything else is so full of incredible messages, I will never ever be able to thank you all individually, so let me please at least thank you here. It’s just unbelievable.”

May went on to describe the surreal experience, saying at one point he believed he was witnessing his own eulogy.

“This is going to sound really strange, but I sort of feel like I died and yet I was able to come to the funeral and see all the tributes. I often think that at funerals, all these people come and say these wonderful things about the person that’s gone but he or she can’t hear it,” he said, adding “I’m lucky, I got to hear it – so my life is complete. Yeah, I’m sorry if that sounds weird, but I can’t compare it with anything.”

He went on to give his heartfelt thanks to fans again, saying, “Thank you, that’s all I can say, for the fantastic amount of love you’ve given me. It’s really appreciated, I will never forget it.”