Martin Roberts watched as doctors removed 1.5 litres of fluid from his heart before emergency surgery

‘Homes Under the Hammer’ presenter had emergency heart surgery on Thursday

Martin Roberts has described the terrifying moment he saw doctors plunge an eight-inch syringe into his chest before undergoing emergency heart surgery.

On Thursday (21 April), the Homes Under the Hammer presenter shared a video to social media explaining that he was in hospital after experiencing chest pains he had initially believed to be due to asthma or long Covid.

Instead, doctors found that his heart was surrounded by “a massive amount of fluid”, which was preventing it from working. He had emergency surgery that night and was later told that he’d had “hours to live” when he was operated on.

Speaking to OK! from the hospital, Roberts said that the incident was “the nearest thing to not being here that’s ever happened to me”.

He was seen within 45 seconds of arriving at the hospital, where it was discovered that his blood pressure was half that of a healthy person.

“It was severe,” he said. “My liver and my kidneys were down to 30 per cent of their normal operational capacity.”

Roberts was given local anaesthetic, before doctors drained a litre and a half of fluid from his lungs with a large syringe.

“I watched as they drew out syringe after syringe after syringe of this liquid,” the property expert said. “I was awake for this, but I was bit woozy. There was a tube that went in through my chest cavity, down into the sack around my heart.”

Roberts said that doctors suspected he had an underlying respiratory problem that had spread to the heart, adding: “It remains to be seen whether I get full function back of my liver and kidneys. I don’t know about the lungs.”