Alan Brazil’s coronary heart stopped throughout life-saving operation as radio legend provides replace on return
Alan Brazil has returned to talkSPORT after a four-month absence, with the veteran broadcaster revealing details of his life-saving liver transplant and the ‘miracle’ recovery he says he has made
Alan Brazil made his return to talkSPORT on Wednesday
talkSPORT Breakfast presenter Alan Brazil has shared an update on his recovery after returning to the station following a life‑saving operation. The radio legend had been off air for nearly four months while dealing with severe health issues.
Brazil underwent a liver transplant, revealing in June that he spent eight hours in surgery and that his heart briefly stopped during the procedure. After several months of recuperation, he made his comeback on the station’s Breakfast show on Wednesday (August 5).
He is back on air alongside former Aston Villa forward Gabriel Agbonlahor, while Scottish legend Ally McCoist is enjoying a ‘well‑deserved’ break after his stint as an ITV co‑commentator at the World Cup.
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Discussing his health ahead of his return, Brazil said: “I am not going to bore everyone but it is remarkable really what happened. One minute I am doing this (the show), I’ve finished at 9:45am, there’s a car outside and I am like ‘what’s going on?’ Straight down to Addenbrooke’s Hospital and a few hours later… wallop.
“They open me up and stick a new liver in there. So I did have cancer in my liver and we suspected that for months to be honest, but they didn’t want to go in and touch it and shake it up in case you could make it spread. First of all they said the perfect match came in, otherwise I might still be waiting and people will know what I am talking about who might be on the list.”
“You can wait 18 months, you can go down there, get ready to have the op and they say ‘it’s not quite right, go away and come back and we will phone you later, maybe in a few weeks’ and it can be murder. I was so lucky, I went down there and they said ‘we’ve got one and it looks perfect so we are going to do it now’.
“They inject you all over and you have to sign a few forms, you get carried in there and it’s like ‘goodbye everyone’, that’s how bad it was. I thought ‘see you later’. Wife’s in tears, it was horrible.”
Brazil added: “That was the stage where I had to get it done otherwise it was ‘see you later’. I didn’t realise it was that extreme but it was. They told me, another couple of weeks and you were gone. I had seven or eight hours on there, the fluid build-up I had was horrendous.
“They cut me open and there was a flood, it was that bad everywhere I had it. I did have a few complications, my heart stopped for 40 seconds. I said ‘did you get the old jump-leads on?’ He said ‘no, no. It came back. We were about to take action but it came back’.”
Alan Brazil was all smiles on his return to talkSPORT
The ex-Ipswich and Tottenham midfielder has branded his operation and recuperation as ‘a miracle’, praising the ‘brilliant’ staff at Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge for preserving his life. “I can’t thank the people at Cambridge enough,” he said.
He also disclosed that he is currently on ‘massive medication,’ adding: “I am on these pills and my resistance levels are not good, so they said I have to stay out of the sun.”
