Channel 7 commentator Kate McCarthy hospitalised over heart issue

Ex-Lions AFLW star turned commentator Kate McCarthy is recovering in hospital after scary scenes following Brisbane’s grand final victory.

Former Brisbane Lions AFLW star Kate McCarthy’s celebration of the men’s team’s grand final triumph has been cut short after she was hospitalised over her ongoing heart issue.

The 31-year-old McCarthy was a 42-game veteran of the AFLW, playing for the Lions, St Kilda and Hawthorn over seven seasons before retiring.

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However, McCarthy has continued her footy career behind the microphone, having become a member of Triple M and Channel 7’s commentary teams, including as part of Channel 7’s AFL grand final coverage over the weekend and co-hosting panel shows Armchair Experts and Talking W.

McCarthy celebrated the Lions’ 60-point AFL grand final thrashing of Sydney as well as the Lions’ AFLW team’s two point win over the Adelaide Crows, raising the side to second on ladder.

But McCarthy took to X on Tuesday, revealing she had been hospitalised to treat her heart issue.

When the @brisbanelions & @lionsaflw double over the weekend sends you into ventricular tachycardia,” she wrote.

“On the mend now but Monday night review shows pacemaker performing like the Swans on the big stage.”

Kate McCarthy is on the mend. Photo: X

McCarthy at the 2024 Brownlow. Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

The Mayo Clinic defines ventricular tachycardia as a type of irregular heartbeat, called an arrhythmia.

If a typical heart beats around 60-100 beats per minute, ventricular tachycardia will make the heart beat faster than 100 beats per minute. If these episodes are prolonged, they can be life threatening.

For McCarthy, it’s all the more dangerous considering she has a pacemaker after she suffered a series of seizures as a child.

In an article on Athletes Voice in 2018, McCarthy revealed that at the age of five she was diagnosed with an ‘intermittent 3’ heart blockage, meaning her heart would stop and then restart.

Cedars-Sinai says a heart block comes when the electrical signals which control the beating of your heart fail to fire.

At the age of 10, her cardiologist suggested having a pacemaker installed if the seizures, which McCarthy said “one seizure every couple of years” got worse.

Kate McCarthy was sitting next to Jude Bolton on Grand Final day. Photo: X

At 12, McCarthy said she had a seizure at school before an ambulance came, where she suffered another, before a third in the emergency department, adding: “I think I had seven seizures that day”.

“When I had my seizures, I would lose consciousness for about 20 or 30 seconds when the seizure was happening, then come back to after that,” McCarthy wrote.

“I think the most concerning thing for Mum and Dad was that I was really into sport – I did triathlons, so lots of swimming and bike riding – and they were really worried about what would happen if something happened while I was swimming or bike riding.

“So I had emergency surgery the next day and they put a pacemaker in, and it was all fixed up from there. It’s never happened since then.”

However, that didn’t stop her athletic endeavours, having represented Queensland in cricket and both Queensland and Australia in touch football, as well as playing in the AFLW, debuting in the Lions’ inaugural game in 2017.

She was an All-Australian and the Lions leading goalkicker in 2017 after booting nine goals in eight games, including playing the competition’s first grand final, eventually losing to Adelaide.

Originally published as Channel 7 commentator Kate McCarthy hospitalised over heart issue