Livia, die Frau von King Diamond, hat in einer Presseerklärung mitgeteilt, dass der King sich einer dreifachen Bypass-Operation unterziehen musste:
[…] On Monday the 29th of November, King had to be transported to the nearby hospital by ambulance. After several different tests were done and the EKG machine showing abnormalities, the doctors recommended that he get a cardiac catheterization.
„Cardiac catheterization is a procedure where the doctors lead a very thin tube up from the leg and into the heart, where it injects dye into the bloodstream. Then a camera at the end of the tube takes many pictures of the heart’s arteries, looking for blockages.
After this was done, they determined that King had several heart attacks, and three of his heart’s arteries were the cause: one was completely blocked, the second was 90% blocked, and the third was 65% blocked. The only solution to this was an open-heart triple-bypass surgery.
[…]
King’s surgery took approximately seven hours. Everything went well, and King was taken to ICU for recovery. He was walking and eating solid food already two days after the operation, and he was the first one in the history of the hospital who walked on his own power from the ICU to normal care.
10 days after the ambulance took him to the emergency room, he is at home and is recovering well. It will be a few months before he feels completely normal and is without pain.
Wer die Erklärung ausführlich lesen möchte, kann unter diesem Beitrag auf die Quelle gehen. Es ist wohl verständlich, dass der King nun eine Pause auf unbestimmte Zeit von der Musik machen wird. Eine neue Scheibe, die Fertigstellung der DVDs (zu Mercyful Fate und King Diamond) und das Touren müssen jetzt erst mal zurückstehen, denn die Gesundheit geht vor. Livia macht in der Erklärung aber auch deutlich, dass diese Pause nicht bedeutet, dass die King Diamond Band sich auflösen würde.
Wir wünschen dem King eine gute und schnelle Genesung.