Former Channel 9 boss David Gyngell out with wife Leila McKinnon and their kids
Just three weeks after having surgery to fix the almost complete blockage of one coronary artery that caused a heart attack, former Channel 9 boss David Gyngell is out and about — and watching his diet.
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Businessman David Gyngell is savouring every precious family moment as he recovers from a heart attack that nearly killed him at 54.
The super-fit former Channel 9 boss — who does not drink alcohol — accompanied TV star wife Leila McKinnon and children Gwendolen, five and Ted, six, on the school run in Byron Bay on Friday.
It’s the first time Gyngell has been photographed in public since having two stents inserted three weeks ago to fix an almost complete blockage of one coronary artery.
The convalescing Gyngell previously said he would have died from the cardiac episode had he not been fit.
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While McKinnon has informed her social media followers her husband was “recovering really well”, sources close to the Nine board director say he is taking the health scare very seriously.
In addition to taking his prescribed medications, the keen surfer and tennis player has snappily adjusted his diet to lower his cholesterol, mindful that his own father, Australian television pioneer Bruce, died prematurely at age 71 from cancer the year after being diagnosed with a brain tumour.
A teetotaller like his son, Gyngell Sr embraced a strict macrobiotic diet and famously became a devotee of yoga and Zen Buddhism while still at the top of his television career and aged in his mid-40s.
It was a practice Gyngell Sr continued until his untimely death, which left behind his two youngest children from his second marriage, sons Adam and Jamie, the eldest of whom was then barely into his teens.
McKinnon, who was also spotted in Sydney during the week, posted a photograph of her husband to Instagram 10 days ago showing the smiling Gyngell embracing the couple’s young children.
“This was taken just six weeks before David’s heart attack,” she wrote.
“He is super fit, healthy and relaxed … but his right coronary artery was 99 per cent blocked — so please get yourself and your loved ones’ heart health checked,” she wrote.
“We were so lucky.”
The television reporter, 47, had rushed Gyngell to John Flynn Hospital after noticing him looking “a little grey” following a boot camp session with tennis ace Pat Rafter.
“He came home from this super-macho crazy boot camp with his mates looking a little grey and complaining of the classic heart attack symptoms, such as pressure on the chest and a tingly arm,” McKinnon said.
“I gave him the choice of an ambulance or hospital. He didn’t put up much resistance.”
Originally published as Former Channel 9 boss David Gyngell out with wife Leila McKinnon and their kids