Veteran Nollywood actor Zack Orji is happy to be back again on his feet after a scary medical emergency that required two brain surgeries to remove a blood clot in Nigeria.
Orji who narrated his ordeal during a Channels TV interview on Sunday said he was thankful to God and the great number of friends who came to his rescue after he collapsed while taking a bath in his bathroom on December 31, 2023 in Abuja.
“I can only say that it’s by the grace of God that I’m alive today because I passed out. I was out for like five and a half hours before help came.”
“Benedict Johnson rushed to the house, and I was there on the floor, incoherent. I couldn’t even stand because when he raised me, I slumped again, and he had to call another colleague whom we call Labista.
“So the two of them lifted me on their shoulders from the second floor to the ground floor and took me to the National Hospital.
“Before the surgery, I couldn’t recognise people. Some of the people who came to the hospital to see me, I didn’t even know that they came and we were talking but I couldn’t remember them. It was my wife who told me those who came.
“But immediately after the surgery, the first question I asked was, ‘What day are we today?’ My wife said new year’s day and I started wishing everybody a happy new year. She said that was when she knew that I was back.
“But in all of it, I’m grateful to God Almighty and I’m also grateful to so many people who stepped in. The President of Nigeria, the First Lady, the wife of the Vice President, the President’s son, the Minister for Women’s Affairs, the Minister for Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy, the Minister for Works, and a whole lot of other people.
“I was receiving calls from South Africa, from the UK, from the US. Some of them were willing to, they were asking me, how can we help? How can we be of assistance? So it was overwhelming the way people responded to the whole thing,” Orji said.
Orji, after his recovery in Nigeria, however, was advised to seek post-surgery assessment in the UK, where he consulted with Dr. John Yeh.
“I’m grateful to God Almighty and I’m also grateful to so many people who stepped in,” Orji said.
