Alison Hammond returns to This Morning and explains why she feared a heart attack on air

Alison Hammond returned to ITV’s This Morning on Friday, 9 October, a week after leaving a live broadcast when she could not catch her breath. She told viewers she feared she was having a heart attack at the time; she later identified the episode as a panic attack. Her return gave viewers her fullest account yet of why she left the programme and how she felt about coming back.

‘I couldn’t catch my breath and I genuinely thought I was having a heart attack,’ Hammond said, according to BBC News. She called it ‘probably one of the most scariest things I’ve ever been through’ and added: ‘It felt like a heart attack. It was very real.’ Her words describe what she believed was happening in the moment, rather than a confirmed heart attack.

Why Alison Hammond left This Morning mid-broadcast

The Independent reports that Hammond was on air with co-host Dermot O’Leary during a segment with dog expert Dr Scott Miller when she was seen clutching her chest and being helped away from the sofa. The programme went to an advert break. When it returned, O’Leary told viewers Hammond was feeling unwell and had ‘had to duck out’.

On Friday, Hammond explained why she had moved so quickly. She said the feeling came over her ‘like a wave’ and that she had never experienced anything like it before. Unable to catch her breath, she worried that her son might be watching the live programme. ‘So I just ran. I ran off TV,’ she said, adding that leaving the broadcast in that way was something she would not normally do.

What Hammond said after her hospital visit

The Independent reports that Hammond posted a video from a hospital bed on Sunday, 4 October. At that point, she said she was getting her heart checked after palpitations and hoped the episode had been ‘just a little panic attack’. That update showed the uncertainty she was still expressing in the days after leaving the programme; it did not set out detailed test results.

She was also absent from the Attitude Awards on Wednesday, 7 October, where she received the Honorary Gay Award. Her former Big Brother co-star Kate Lawler read a statement Hammond had written. In it, Hammond said experiencing the episode so publicly had been ‘incredibly difficult’. Being seen struggling, instead of making other people laugh, felt ‘a very vulnerable place to be’, she said.

The statement offered another view of the days between the broadcast and her return. Hammond said she was learning that vulnerability was not weakness. Lawler, speaking in her own words after reading the statement, said Hammond had thought she was having a heart attack rather than a panic attack when it happened. On Friday, Hammond described that fear herself on This Morning.

Why she was anxious about returning

Hammond told viewers she had been unsure about going back on air. ‘I was anxious about coming back,’ she said, explaining that she feared she might never return if she missed that Friday’s programme. She said she did not want to assume This Morning itself had caused the episode: ‘It can happen anywhere. It comes in ebbs and flows.’

She also wondered aloud whether the demands of live television might have had an impact, while stressing that she did not know. She regularly presents live TV, she said, and questioned whether having to be ‘on’ had affected her. The cited reports provide no established trigger or detailed medical findings, so that remains a question Hammond raised, not a conclusion about her health or her work.

Back beside O’Leary, Hammond thanked him for holding the fort and thanked those who had sent good wishes. BBC News reports that they later discussed panic attacks with psychologist and former BBC Breakfast presenter Dr Sian Williams. Hammond ended the segment with a short message to viewers: ‘I’m back, babes. Keep rolling.’