Bishop T.D. Jakes, the founder of the Potter's House in Dallas, Texas, has revealed that the health incident he experienced while preaching on November 24 was a heart attack.
In an interview with NBC's Craig Melvin on the "Today" show, Jakes explained, “You know, I didn't really realize what was happening to me on stage until I got to the hospital in an ambulance. And [I was] fussing that it happened on stage, by the way, because I didn't want it to happen.”
He recounted how a doctor informed him, “You had a massive heart attack,” despite his lack of typical symptoms such as numbness or sharp pain. He only felt himself drifting off to sleep and later said, “I almost died.”
"The doctor leaned over in my ear and said, 'You had a massive heart attack.' And the reason I didn't realize it is I had no symptoms that they say: no numbness, no sharp pain, no anything. I just kind of drifted off to sleep. I didn't know what it was, but I almost died," Jakes added.
Jakes had previously alluded to health issues during his return to the pulpit on New Year’s Eve but had not specifically stated that he had suffered a heart attack.
However, he was more explicit in the recent interview, sharing, “He [the doctor] said five minutes later, I would have been dead on arrival. The right side of my heart had completely stopped giving blood at all. As long as I was up preaching, I felt fine. When I sat down, the adrenaline dropped and exposed the fact I was preaching with half of my heart closed through a clot. They had to go get it.”
Reflecting on his near-death experience, Jakes described it as comforting, stating, “In my mind, I was in a quiet, peaceful, serene, white-enveloped, cloud-enveloped space. I was on my way out. Afterwards, in retrospect, it was such a privilege to stand on the other side to get a little glimpse of what that might be like … I think it was absolutely amazing.”
Jakes experienced a health issue that caused him to briefly lose consciousness after praying Psalm 19:14 during his Sunday morning service on November 25 of last year. A video clip of the incident posted on YouTube showed him sharing his passion for preaching and expressing that he wasn’t tired of his job just before facing a health incident on stage.
Jakes’ message comes as he filed a defamation lawsuit against former pastor and convicted sex offender Duane Youngblood the day after the health incident. The lawsuit alleges that Youngblood made defamatory accusations against Jakes regarding events that supposedly occurred around 40 years ago.
According to lawsuit documents, Jakes’ attorneys stated that Youngblood’s claims were part of an orchestrated scheme to tarnish Jakes’ reputation and extort millions of dollars from him.
Youngblood, who previously pastored in Homestead, Pennsylvania, was arrested on multiple charges related to the sexual abuse of minors dating back to 2002.
