The actor chronicles his struggles with substance addiction in the book 'Friends, Lovers, And The Big Terrible Thing'. Photo: Matthew Perry/Instagram
Matthew Perry’s heart stopped for five minutes after he received an anesthetic before an operation, requiring CPR that left him with eight broken ribs, the “Friends” star writes in a new memoir.
The actor, who chronicles his struggles with substance addiction in the book Friends, Lovers, And The Big Terrible Thing, says he was given hydrocodone after complaining of stomach pain at a Swiss rehab center, according to Rolling Stone.
Perry says he took the hydrocodone throughout the night before a scheduled procedure to address the pain, and suffered the heart issue once doctors gave him propofol for the surgery.
“Apparently, the propofol had stopped my heart. For five minutes,” Perry wrote.
“It wasn’t a heart attack – I didn’t flatline – but nothing had been beating. I was told that some beefy Swiss guy really didn’t want the guy from Friends dying on his table and did CPR on me for the full five minutes, beating and pounding my chest. If I hadn’t been on Friends, would he have stopped at three minutes?”
The report doesn’t specify when the incident occurred, but says it took place while Perry was filming Netflix’s satirical comedy Don’t Look Up, which premiered last year. Perry was set to portray a Republican journalist in the film, but ultimately dropped out due to his pain, he writes.
Perry also says his colon once burst as a result of opioid use, according to the memoir, out Nov 1. – New York Daily News/Tribune News Service
