The Mayor for London Sadiq Khan has revealed that he suffered a “minor heart attack” at the climate change conference COP26 in Glasgow.
Khan said that “out of nowhere, I felt a know in my chest, a kind of tightening” and was then helped off the stage.
In his book “Breathe” which has been published this week the Mayor recounted, “It was COP26 in Glasgow and I seemed to be having a heart attack.”
The Standard was told by the Mayor’s aides on Sunday night that he was “in rude health” and Khan is not on medication for his heart.
It is not known why the Mayor suddenly fell ill in at the COP26 conference on 10 November, 2021, but his symptoms were consistent with a minor heart attack, experts have said.
Khan wrote that he was at A&E at Glasgow Royal Infirmary where he underwent a an electrocardiogram (ECG) and blood tests detected a “protein called troponin , which is released into the blood after unusual heart activity.”
He then had a second set of blood tests and the troponin had doubled and “there was a possibility that earlier that evening I’d had a minor heart attack,” he wrote.
Police protection officers had taken Khan to the hospital and the Mayor who was aged 51 at the time wrote, “I couldn’t believe it.
“I felt fine. I simply didn’t believe I had had a heart attack. The whole situation felt unreal. In a matter of hours, I was due to give perhaps the biggest address of my mayoralty.
“And yet here I was in Glasgow Royal Infirmary, half of my body in suit trousers and the other in a hospital gown, waiting to be told if I was going to be admitted for urgent treatment.”
The Mayor will give the proceeds of his book to the Ella Roberta Foundation, which was established in memory of Ella Kissi-Debrah.
She was the south London schoolgirl who was the first person in the world to have air pollution as a cause of death which was written on her death certificate.
