BY: Walker
Published 3 days ago
Bishop T.D. Jakes is sharing new details about his November medical scare that shocked his congregation and the world.
“I didn’t really realize what was happening to me onstage until I got to the hospital in an ambulance and fussing that it happened onstage, by the way, because I didn’t want it to happen, and the doctor leaned over my ear and said, ‘You had a massive heart attack,'” Jakes told Craig Melvin on TODAY on March 26.
Jakes, 67, was delivering an inspirational message on Nov. 23, 2024, at The Potter’s House, a nondenominational Christian megachurch in Dallas where he is the pastor, when he experienced a medical emergency.
Video of the moment shows Jakes pausing onstage and shaking after lowering the microphone, according to NBC affiliate KXAS. Church officials then rush the stage to help him before the video cuts out.
“The reason I didn’t realize it was because I had none of the symptoms that they say,” Jakes told Craig about the heart attack. “No numbness, no sharp pain, no anything. I just kind of drifted off to sleep. I didn’t know what it was, but I almost died.
“(The doctor) said five minutes later, I’d have been dead on arrival,” he continued. “The right side of my heart had completely stopped getting blood at all.”
Jakes had been standing onstage and preaching before sitting down in a chair and experiencing the heart attack.
“As long as I was up preaching, I felt fine,” he said. “But when I sat down, the adrenaline dropped, and it exposed the fact that I was preaching with half of my heart closed through a clot. And they had to go get it.”
The pastor also shared what he saw in that moment.
“It’s hard for me to look at that video,” he said. “They had to claw the microphone out of my hand. But in my mind, I was in a quiet, peaceful, serene, white-enveloped, cloud-enveloped space.
“I was on my way out,” he continued. “Afterwards in retrospect, it was such a privilege to stand on the other side, to get a little glimpse of what it might be like, or at least what it was like in that moment for me. I think it was absolutely amazing.”
He also gave thanks for the prayers he received from his congregation and people around the world.
“While they were praying, the surgeons were operating while I was awake,” he said. “They never put me to sleep. Technology is amazing.”
Craig told him it appears the heart attack has not slowed him down. Jakes detailed plans for upcoming events at the church and a new podcast he is starting.
“No, I’m getting faster because one, I’m older. Two, I’m grateful. Three, I’ve got something to say,” he said.
The father of five posted a statement on X on Nov. 27 in which he wrote that he did not have a stroke, but “the event could’ve been fatal if it weren’t for God’s intervention.” He gave thanks to the medical professionals who treated him and the leadership of the church for helping him through the ordeal.
“Many of you don’t realize that you’re looking at a miracle,” Jakes said in the video he shared on Instagram on Dec. 1, 2024. “I faced a life-threatening calamity. (I) was rushed to the ICU unit. I had emergency surgery. (I) survived this surgery. Yeah, I’m back.”
Jakes returned on New Year’s Eve for his first sermon at the church since his medical emergency.
“I had a fair amount of anxiety about walking out on this stage, standing in the same spot that I almost died in,” Jakes told his church, according to KXAS. “And frankly, I think I did, but God, in his infinite wisdom and great grace, brought me back to the same spot. I was in the emergency room and said, ‘Lord, what are you doing? If you’d have waited five minutes, it would have happened, and nobody would have seen it, but you did it on an open stage where everybody could see.’”
“I went through several hours of surgery,” he said in his sermon. “They almost lost me twice, but every time my numbers dropped, your prayers prevailed, and I’m standing here today in the glory of God.”
via: TODAY.com
