Mum has heart attack after singing Total Eclipse of the Heart at karaoke night

A MOTHER-OF-THREE was recovering today after suffering a heart attack while singing karaoke at a holiday hotel.
Linda Glassford suffered a heart attack at the Royal Seabank Hotel - but staff refused to call her an ambulanceLinda Glassford suffered a heart attack at the Royal Seabank Hotel - but staff refused to call her an ambulance
Linda Glassford suffered a heart attack at the Royal Seabank Hotel - but staff refused to call her an ambulance

Linda Glassford, 54, struggled to get through one of her favourite songs as she sang into the mike at a karaoke bar in Blackpool.

After finishing a version of Roy Orbison’s Penny Arcade she fell unwell and had to be rushed to hospital where staff said she had suffered a heart attack.

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Back home in Halton Moor, Leeds, Mrs Glassford said: “I think my singing must have put extra stress on my heart and I was doing my best to rush it.

“It’s a strenuous song, and I like to put my all into my singing, that I didn’t even get to the end. I had to apologise and leave the stage.”

Mrs Glassford, who has won two karaoke competitions, left the bar and went back to the Royal Seabank Hotel, where she had to ask them to get her an ambulance.

She arrived at A&E in the “nick of time” to be told that she had suffered a heart attack - her second.

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Mrs Glassford said: “My friends know how much I love karaoke, and will think it’s typical of me to be singing while something like this happens to me.”

Mrs Glassford, a domestic cleaner, had gone away on the three-night break at the end of August with two of her friends.

They had gone to see the cabaret drag show Funny Girls on the Friday night and had done out for a spot of karaoke - at Mrs Glassford’s request - on the Saturday night.

Mrs Glassford said: “I was not feeling too well so I hadn’t even had a drink. One of my friends had gone home after two drinks and so there was just me and one other friend when I got up to sing.

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“But I had to leave as I struggled through Total Eclipse of the Heart, so I went home in a taxi, leaving my other friend behind.

“I said ‘I’ve had a heart attack before and I think I’m having another one’.

“The hotel poster took hold of my arm for a few seconds and said ‘that’s totally normal’.

“The woman behind the desk offered to call me a taxi to take me to the hospital.”

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Hotel managing director Tony Banks said Mrs Glassford’s memory of what happened was “ambiguous” due to her being “very confused and a little disorientated” at the time.

Doctors at the hospital quickly confirmed she was indeed having a heart attack and administered an injection to break down the clot that was slowing down blood flow to her heart.

Mrs Glassford, who is a widow, said: “I was in tears. I thought I was going to die. I wanted to ring my sons to say goodbye.”

Mrs Glassford was kept at Blackpool Victoria Hospital for five days where she was given several more injections.