Advertisement

Coronation Street star cheats death after suffering heart attack and being in induced coma

Corrie stars gathering in the Rovers Return. (REX)
Corrie stars gathering in the Rovers Return. (REX)

Coronation Street’s Malcolm Hebden is recovering after suffering heart attack and being placed in an induced coma.

The actor who plays Norris Cole was placed into a coma for several weeks and was on the verge of dying.

Speaking to the Blackpool Gazette, Hebden, 78, said that he’d been gravely ill at the tail end of last year: ‘Most of December I was in an induced coma, in the care of these brilliant, wonderful people at the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU),’ he shared.

‘Fortunately I didn’t realise how bad it was, I was dying. The cardiac team, headed by Mr. Joseph Zacharias, simply saved my life,’ confessed the actor who has been a regular on the ITV1 soap for nearly 20 years.

Hebden says he was told afterwards what had happened to him: ‘I was informed by my doctor I had had at least one heart attack.

‘I was sent to hospital, by emergency ambulance to Blackburn hospital and was there one night. While there I collapsed and was brought here to Blackpool Victoria – where I was operated on, in a procedure which was described by my surgeon Mr Zacharias as groundbreaking.

Malcolm and Barbara Knox won the Best Onscreen Partnership at the 2006 Soap Awards. (REX)
Malcolm and Barbara Knox won the Best Onscreen Partnership at the 2006 Soap Awards. (REX)

‘The heart attack tore a hole in my heart, they operated and took a chance.’

Hebden first appeared on Corrie in 1974 as Mavis’s Spanish boyfriend but as nosy Norris Cole 20 years later in ’94.

In 1997, he left the show but returned two years later and has remained there ever since.

He won the Inside Soap Award in 2001 and 2002 for Funniest Character, and was awarded the Best Onscreen Partnership at the 2006 Soap Awards for his dynamics with Barbara Knox who plays Rita Sullivan.

While the actor is recovering, no one knows if or when he will return to the Manchester-based soap, with no official comment from him or Corrie about the situation or fate of his character.

Catch Corrie weeknights, from 7.30pm, on ITV1.

Read more:

The Beckhams celebrate their 19th wedding anniversary despite spilt rumours

Ed Sheeran pays tribute to 11-year-old superfan who died

Tom Daley said his life was ‘ruled by fear’ after coming out as gay