ABC Radio Brisbane Evenings presenter Kelly Higgins-Devine didn’t ignore the warnings when she felt a slight chest pain while walking.

She says, “My heart rate would start to go up, and I’d start to feel breathless and I’d get a slight ache in my chest,…not enough that it was painful, but enough that I noticed it.”

She says she was lucky to have had it and visited her GP where she was quickly scheduled for several tests.

Echocardiograms, a stress test and an angiogram revealed two of her arteries were severely blocked, one at 90 percent and the other at 70 per cent.

“They came back and said ‘you’ve got two arteries, one that’s blocked at 90 per cent and one that’s blocked at 70 per cent, and that’s not good’,” she said.

Kelly is now resting at home after undergoing a double bypass surgery and says she is already feeling better and expected that all being well, she would have another 30 years with her reinvigorated heart.

She says anyone who experienced even mild symptoms should talk to their doctor, “Heart disease is the biggest killer in Australia, but if you do something, if you actually can get those warning signals, you’ll be fine if you check it out. Don’t ignore it.”

_{(Photo credit: 612 ABC Brisbane: Jessica Hinchliffe)}