While some of the more nasty Top Gear fans might be disappointed, former Top Gear host Chris Evans says he nearly died while on holiday in Barbados over the Christmas period.
Speaking on his BBC Radio 2 show last week, Evans said he was “felled like a sack of spuds on Christmas Eve” and “nearly pegged it” when his temperature soared to 41C. He said: “At one point I thought, ‘Do you know what? I’ve got a lovely life and love my family to death but do you know… I feel so ill at the moment.’ It was nearly curtains for me.”
Evans said he sought treatment from a local doctor on the island. “A very nice Bajan doctor diagnosed me with an upper airways infection; actually three – one for the ears, one for the nose and one for the throat. He was quite amazed when the thermometer showed that lava-like temperature reading of 106[F]. Immediately he gave me a shot of something rather lively in my gluteus maximus plus three oral medicines that I had to take at various intervals in the day, whilst avoiding grapefruit. Go figure.”
Evans believes he was suffering from a form of pneumonia. Dr Fiona McAndrew, the Daily Mail’s resident health expert, says he might have been suffering from mycoplasma pneumonia, a slightly milder form of the illness. “There is a lot of influenza going around, and with a temperature that high – I don’t think I’ve ever seen a patient with one of 106 – it is very possible he had pneumonia, or mycoplasma pneumonia,” she said.