According tobillboard.com, Judas Priest guitarist Richie Faulkner recently revealed on Instagram that he has undergone a second open heart surgery. He posted to Instagram that, “One year ago today. Less than an hour before my life changed forever, 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 continued to explain that his first emergency heart attack surgery occurred the same month, he has experienced numerous health problems in the year since. “I’m not completely out of the woods yet, 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 he had to undergo a follow up open heart surgery operation in order to repair the leak, due to his health problems the band dropped out of next month’s Aftershock Festival so that he could 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, 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.”
In October of last year, singer Rob Halford shared that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer during the pandemic.
—
James Jeffrey Taylor / Shutterstock.com