Judas Priest guitarist Richie Faulkner took to social media on Monday (Sept. 26) to reveal he’s undergone a second open heart surgery.
“One year ago today. Less than an hour before my life changed forever,” the musician reminisced alongside a video of the band’s 2021 performance at Louder Than Life Festival in Louisville, Ky., during which his aorta ruptured. “It’s crazy how one minute you’re listening to the crowd singing war pigs- everything normal, everything seemingly fine- the next it turns out that it was almost the last time I ever heard it.”
Faulkner went on to explain that, though his first emergency heart surgery took place that same month, he’s experienced a number of scary health complications in the year since. “I’m not completely out of the woods yet,” he revealed. “Just before we toured Europe, scans showed a hole in one of the connections between the synthetic graft and my own aorta that was causing a leak. The blood from the leak was forming an 8cm sack that was surrounding my heart.”
As a result, the guitarist went through a follow-up open heart operation to repair the leak, and that the band dropped out of next month’s Aftershock Festival in order for him to recover. “So I’m now six weeks post the 2nd open heart surgery, feeling well and strong and Looking forward to seeing you all again on the next leg of the US #50heavymetalyears tour starting in a few weeks,” he added. “My surgeons were always confident that it was enough time for me to recover and get back out on the road and it seems like they were right.” H
Faulkner isn’t the only member of Judas Priest to face health problems as of late, either. Last October, singer Rob Halford shared the news that he’d been diagnosed with prostate cancer during the pandemic.
Read Faulker’s post about his latest heart surgery below.
