Keys’ thanks for ‘saving life’

FORMER Sky Sports presenter Richard Keys marked the New Year by thanking medical staff who he said had “saved his life”.

The Cov Kid, who now hosts a football show for Middle East-based BeIN Sports, took to Twitter to thank doctors and nurses at the Royal Brompton & Harefield Hospital in Chelsea, London, a specialist heart and lung centre.

The 60-year-old Coventry City fan posted a tweet on New Year’s Eve accompanied by a picture of himself in a hospital bed hooked-up to an oxygen mask and drip.

He wrote: “Emotional now & I’ll regret this tomorrow. “Not a great year, mostly my fault - but this wasn’t. “Thank you to everybody @RBandH (Royal Brompton & Harefield) for saving my life & letting me see 2018. “Let’s all have a happy & healthy New Year.” Although Mr Keys did not specify the condition, or when the photo was taken, it has since emerged he underwent heart surgery for a clogged artery in the summer. It has been revealed Mr Keys was admitted after his estranged wife Julia became concerned about his health and forced him to see a doctor in Qatar about his high blood pressure. The 57-year-old mother-of-two said she had concerns about his health before they split. Mrs Keys, a trained psychotherapist, told The Sun: “If it wasn’t for me, he’d be dead by now.

“When I was living out in Doha with him I took his blood pressure one day and I noticed it was really high.”

She said Mr Keys was diagnosed with a thoracic aortic aneurysm after visiting a GP in Doha.

He returned to the UK to see a consultant last summer, accompanied by Mrs Keys.

Mr Keys was told that he could undergo surgery but that it was not immediately required.

Mrs Keys said: “Richard was saying he’d rather wait but I said, ‘Absolutely not. You’re going to get this done now because I don’t think it should be left.’

“When they opened him up, they said he would have dropped down dead within a month.”

Mr Keys left Sky Sports in 2011 when recordings of comments by himself and fellow pundit Andy Gray about female match officials were made public.

The presenter later apologised for what he said about female assistant referee Sian Massey, also from Coventry, and labelled it “prehistoric banter”.

He is now contracted to Qatarbased BeIN Sports until the World Cup in that country in 2022.