<\/p>\n
Ronnie McDowell gave the country music world one heck of a scare back in June when he suffered a stroke onstage while performing at a music festival in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
The 75-year-old recently underwent a procedure to clear plaque from an artery in his neck, but even before the procedure he was already back out and performing. It has been clear that he is one tough dude, but in a recent interview with Taste of Country he revealed what saved his life<\/b><\/a>.<\/b> McDowell said doctors in Pennsylvania allowed him to leave the hospital there and go home to arrange a surgery because of it, too.<\/p>\n \u201c(The doctor) said, \u2018I\u2019m gonna let you go home, and let me tell you why,\u201d he told Taste of Country.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been doing this 30-something years,\u201d he said the doctor continued. \u201cI listened to your heart, and you\u2019ve got the strongest heart I have ever heard.\u201d<\/p>\n McDowell said the doctor old him, \u201cThat\u2019s what saved you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBecause you were 70, almost 80 percent blocked,\u2019 McDowell said the doctor told him. \u201cHe said, \u2018Your heart was pumping through that really hard, and it scraped the plaque off.\u201d<\/p>\n McDowell told the outlet he has spent his life eating right and trying to be healthy, and that was not the case with all of his bandmates.<\/p>\n \u201cThey would (say), \u2018Oh, Ronnie\u2019s on a diet, we\u2019re all gonna starve,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd guess what: They\u2019re all dead. They\u2019re gone. Because of lifestyle. Smoking and overeating, drinking too much, drugging, smoking weed, all the crazy stuff. And one of them was my little brother.\u201d<\/p>\n McDowell told Taste of Country he had a rough couple of days where \u201cI couldn\u2019t put a sentence together,\u201d before his stroke.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought, \u2018What in Gold\u2019s name is wrong with my brain? It won\u2019t connect,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Still, he said he wanted to do the Summer Solstice Music Festival in Oley. But during the show, he said he started slurring and forgetting his words. His son, Ronnie McDowell Jr., stopped the show to ask him if he was OK.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I said, \u2018No, I think I\u2019m having a stroke,\u201d McDowell told Taste of Country.<\/p>\n That led to the singer being rushed to the hospital and embarking on what has been a remarkable recovery.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.pennlive.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ronnie McDowell gave the country music world one heck of a scare back in June when he suffered a stroke onstage while performing at a music festival in Pennsylvania. The 75-year-old recently underwent a procedure to clear plaque from an artery in his neck, but even before the procedure he was already back out and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2004055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2004055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2004055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2004055\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2004055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2004055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2004055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}