The 70-year-old muscle man needed unscheduled open heart surgery after developing complications from a routine op. Arnold Schwarzenegger was rushed into surgery for an emergency heart operation at the age of 70.
The actor and former California governor was taken to Cedars-Sinai hospital in LA last week for a catheter valve replacement - but developed complications while he was there.
As a result, doctors took the decision to give him emergency open-heart surgery in an operation that lasted several hours. The valve was replaced and by the beginning of the weekend, and the actor’s spokesperson Daniel Ketchell revealed that Arnold Schwarzenegger was stable after the surgery. He even seemed to be in good spirits, as Ketchell also revealed that Schwarzenegger made a famous movie reference upon waking up. He said about what happened:
Shwarzenegger is awake and his first words were actually ‘I’m back,’ so he is in good spirits.
“I’m back” is, of course, a nod to “I’ll be back,” a catchphrase associated with Arnold Schwarzenegger since the 1984 flick The Terminator came out. It ranks as one of the most famous movie quotes of all time -- and certainly one of the actor’s most famous -- and it’s super amusing that in the haze of anesthesia that he was still able to crack a joke like this upon waking up. “Good spirits” is certainly the right turn of phrase to use regarding the comment.
According to Ketchell, Arnold Schwarzenegger was undergoing a procedure to replace a pulmonic valve that was originally introduced in 1997, thanks to a congenital heart defect. That valve was never meant to be permanent and needed to be replaced. He also thanks the Cedars-Sinai medical team for helping out Schwarzenegger in his time of need.
During that procedure, an open-heart surgery team was prepared, as they frequently are in these circumstances, in case the catheter procedure was unable to be performed.
Although there’s been a blip in the actor’s schedule due to his emergency heart surgery, the 70-year-old actor is still planning to be busy over the next year. The biggest of these is Terminator 6, which is expected to start filming this coming June. It is expected to come out by July of 2019. A sequel to Twins called Triplets has also been announced, although that has been in development for a while, along with a few other projects of that ilk. In addition, Arnold Schwarzenegger can next be seen in Viy 2: Journey to China, opposite Jackie Chan. That flick is expected to hit theaters later this year.
We’ll keep you updated if anything else goes down related to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s health issues, but in the meantime, our thoughts are with the Governator, and we wish him a speedy recovery during this time.
Arnie was seen at an NBA game in LA on February 18 2018