PM was ‘out of body’
Prime Minister John Key has described fainting in a Christchurch restaurant as an ‘‘out-of-body experience’’ where he could hear voices but was unable to respond.
Mr Key collapsed in a packed Italian restaurant in Merivale about 9.15pm on Thursday.
Witnesses said he looked pale and sweaty before fainting.
Mr Key stood up to leave the restaurant, but his legs buckled and he fell against another diner’s chair.
He was rushed to Christchurch Hospital, where he was given an ECG and had blood tests during a two-hour stay in the emergency department. After being seen by specialists, he was cleared to travel to Antarctica yesterday morning.
On the flight down to the icy continent, he revealed it was his wife, Bronagh, who caught him as he fell.
As they prepared to leave the restaurant, his wife had asked him if he felt OK, but he did not answer her.
Mr Key was confident he had recovered from whatever caused him to collapse. ‘‘I feel totally fine.’’
Antarctica New Zealand officials he was dining with suggested he was suffering from jet lag after flying back from Hawaii on Thursday.
However, former prime minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer suggested Mr Key’s collapse was linked to his demanding workload, and he recalled suffering a similar misadventure while deputy prime minister.
‘‘I had been working from 7am and I hadn’t had much to eat and I went to Government House for the evening and I fainted,’’ he said. ‘‘I just remember coming to, and the governor-general looking after me.’’
In Antarctica today, Mr Key’s planned trip to the South Pole was cancelled because bad weather prevented aircraft from making the six-hour return flight.