Susan Lucci's Heart Scare 'I Feel Lucky To Be Alive'

IN OCTOBER THE ACTRESS UNDERWENT AN EMERGENCY HEART PROCEDURE THAT SAVED HER LIFE. NOW SHE’S SHARING HER STORY, HOPING TO HELP OTHER WOMEN: ‘IF IT CAN HAPPEN TO ME, IT CAN HAPPEN TO ANYONE’

- Liz Mcneil

Last Oct. 23 began like any other for daytime-TV legend Susan Lucci. After her morning Pilates workout, the 72-year-old actress had driven to the Tory Burch boutique in Manhasset, N.Y., to do a little shopping and pick up a birthday present for a friend. But as she stood waiting to have her gifts wrapped, Lucci suddenly felt an intense pressure in her chest. “It felt like an elephant pressing down on me,” says Lucci, who had to sit down to catch her breath. “The pain radiated around my rib cage to my back.” Alarmed, the store manager offered to drive her to nearby St. Francis Hospital while Lucci called her husband—Helmut Huber, 81, a retired chef—and his cardiologist, who was working at the hospital. “The doctor said, ‘Those symptoms are significant; meet me in the ER,’ ” recalls Lucci, who had spent more than four decades as Erica Kane on All My Children. “I didn’t realize how serious it was.”