‘You don’t survive this’: Triple M host Ben Dobbin reveals major heart scare

Triple M radio host Ben ‘Dobbo’ Dobbin has revealed he is lucky to be alive after discovering the chest pain he had previously ignored was actually a ticking time bomb

Brisbane radio host Ben “Dobbo” Dobbin has revealed he underwent lifesaving heart surgery after discovering he was weeks away from a catastrophic heart attack.

Speaking on Triple M’s The Rush Hour on Monday, Dobbin said he had ignored chest pain for six weeks until members of his Ipswich walking club and his wife Amity urged him to visit his general practitioner a fortnight ago, who sent him directly to hospital where they discovered he had a major blockage – a lesion known as the widow maker.

After having a stent inserted into the artery at St Andrew’s Hospital, which he admits has likely saved his life, Dobbin is urging Queenslanders to get their hearts checked.

Leisel Jones and Ben Dobbin host The Rush Hour on Triple M drive. Photo: Peter Wallis

“I had an 88 per cent blockage of a major artery. I had to have a stent. I am beyond lucky. You don’t survive this,” he told his co-hosts Leisel Jones and Liam Flanagan.

“I can’t talk about this enough, but this is completely my fault. I drank, I smoked, I ate crap food, I never did any exercise, I have high stress, I was divorced, I had kids … I never went to the GP, never got my blood pressure checked, never got my cholesterol checked.”

Dobbin weighed 160kg around five years ago before deciding to change his lifestyle, and underwent gastric bypass surgery a year ago to now weigh under 100kg.

“The last two or three years I’ve completely changed my life but it caught up with me and if these blokes and my wife Amity and these doctors hadn’t got me in … I am dead,” he continued.

“There’s no two ways about it, and I get upset about because I’ve got little kids, Ella Daisy who is three, I’m just remarried, I’ve got older kids. I don’t want to die at 45. You just shouldn’t.”

Dobbin married Amity late last year before enjoying a honeymoon on Hamilton Island.

He began feeling pain his chest and arms over the course of six weeks, putting the symptoms down to his Covid booster vaccination and a recent flu.

But during a morning walk with his Ipswich walking group The Walrus Club, Dobbin suffered extreme chest pain while climbing a hill in Queen’s Park.

“I had the most enormous pain in my chest that I’ve ever had. I was sweating profusely,” he said. “This is not a hard walk, but I had this amazing pain in my chest. I’m talking like a cement truck sitting on top of it. I thought I was having a heart attack.”

Despite encouragement from his fellow walkers to visit his doctor, Dobbin went home. But when the pain returned the following morning and his wife Amity insisted he seek help, he made an appointment with his general practitioner who took an urgent blood test.

“Within an hour he rang me and said you need to get to emergency, do not drive, straight away,” said Dobbin, who underwent surgery at St Andrew’s Hospital.

“By 20 years I was the youngest person in that recovery room.”

“Men you’ve got to go to the GP and get checked. I am on blood thinners, aspirin cholesterol tablets for the rest of my life and I caused it all by myself.”