Schwarzenegger Reflects on His Third Heart Surgery: It Was a Disaster

Arnold Schwarzenegger reflects on his third open-heart surgery and reveals that surgical complications nearly took his life.

The 6-year-old action superstar and former California governor, who has congenital heart disease, recently shared his experience with heart valve replacement surgery on his YouTube channel before filming the 2019 movie "Terminator: Dark Fate." When he woke up, he recalled doctors telling him there had been unexpected internal bleeding during the operation.

"I was truly terrified," Schwarzenegger recalled. "I woke up, and suddenly the doctors were standing in front of me, saying, 'I'm sorry, but this is different from what we planned.'" "There were some accidents during their surgery that made it extremely challenging for me to recover effectively. But at that moment, I knew I had to pull myself together and strive to get back to where I was before."

The video documents Schwarzenegger's road to recovery, including clips of him taking small steps around the hospital. He said, "I may have looked like a fool stumbling down the hallway, but the most crucial thing was to keep moving forward, because the doctors emphasized the importance of exercising my lungs, as pneumonia could be deadly."

He explained that, in order to film "Dark Fate," he had to rely on courage to regain his physical form. Schwarzenegger stated, "I had to maintain my physique, walk, run, lift, and perform intense action scenes." He added that his "positive attitude" and the support of science helped him achieve his goals, and eventually, everything returned to normal.