[
Earlier this year, BBC broadcaster Gordon Smart recalled a creepy and horrifying incident involving his friend, actor Jamie Dornan.
On the January 12 episode of BBC Radio Scotland's “The Good, the Bad and the Unexpected” podcast, Smart revealed that during a golf trip to Portugal in March 2023, he began feeling symptoms of a heart attack, requiring medical attention. He attributed it to too many espresso martinis. , according to People magazine.
Strangely, however, when he returned from the hospital, the 43-year-old broadcaster learned that Dornan, 41, had also experienced the same symptoms.
A native of Northern Ireland, Dornan starred in the “Fifty Shades” trilogy of erotic romance films.
Meanwhile, Smart described himself as being in good physical condition.
“Now, I'm a pretty healthy person but once you start thinking you're having a heart attack, you're totally convinced you're having a heart attack,” the broadcaster said, according to Page Six. You're having a heart attack.”
So, clearly, the apparent coincidence of heart attack-related symptoms simultaneously affecting two healthy friends in their 40s, one of whom is a fit actor, requires explanation.
On the podcast, Smart explained what happened to him and how he discovered the possible culprit.
At first, he recalled feeling “a tingling in my left hand, then a tingling in my left arm”, symptoms he saw as “normally indicating the beginning of a heart attack”.
When he woke up after fainting in the Uber, he found himself in a hospital bed. Convinced that he had consumed too much caffeine, he told the doctor about the espresso martinis.
Then, upon being discharged, Smart left the hospital and returned to the golf resort, where he saw Dornan, “with all this stuff stuck to his chest, and saying, 'Dear me, Gordon, you're about to leave. After 20 minutes, my left hand was numb.” , My left leg went numb, my right leg went numb. And I found myself in the back of the ambulance.”
People magazine quoted a “source close to Dornan” as saying that the actor never actually went to the hospital. But the source did not deny Smart's description of his friend having similar symptoms.
Somehow, the cause of those symptoms remains a mystery.
Then came the scary part.
A week after the golf trip ended, the hospital doctor called Smart to ask if he had encountered any caterpillars on the golf course.
Yes, caterpillar.
“And it turns out there are caterpillars on golf courses in the south of Portugal that are killing people's dogs and giving heart attacks to men in their 40s. “It turns out that we had a fight against a hairy processionary caterpillar and we were very lucky to come out of it alive,” Smart said.
Readers can hear Smart's description in the following video posted on YouTube by E! news.
Based on Terrence D. Fitzgerald, distinguished professor of organic sciences at SUNY Cortland, the “pine processionary caterpillar” is taken into account “probably the most well-known of all processionaries.”
Native to Southern Europe, the Close to East, and North Africa, this insect has a robust anti-predator protection. Subsequently, people ought to take care to keep away from them in any respect prices.
“Coming into contact with hair causes pores and skin rashes and eye irritation. Delicate people might also develop an allergic response to proteins related to the caterpillar's hair, Fitzgerald wrote.
The truth is, Australian Geographic used rather more alarming language to explain all sorts of processionary caterpillars.
For instance, any of the “thousands and thousands of lengthy skinny, needle-like hairs that cowl every caterpillar” could cause blindness if it will get into the eyes.
Moreover, “pregnant horses that by chance eat these caterpillars whereas on grass will mechanically abort their unborn foals.”
In different phrases, it seems Sensible and Dornan obtained fortunate.
It’s a exceptional and disturbing factor that lots of our most harmful adversaries are both microscopic or too small to look harmful.
Maybe God supposed this as a lesson in humility.
This text initially appeared on The Western Journal.