“I’m normally pretty good at brushing things off but to be honest, I was terrified.”

HOT FM Cairns’ Elliott Lovejoy, one of Radio Today’s Top Hot New Talent of 2015 just a couple weeks back had his world turned upside down.

One minute he’s at work, the next he’s being rushed to hospital. This is what happened in Elliot’s own words.

It was a few weeks ago at work when we were having a planning meeting,  when apparently I just dropped to the floor and fainted. I then did it twice more in the space of half an hour as my team acted swiftly and the paramedics rushed me to hospital.

There was no warning, no nothing, I was just out like a light.

After spending a night or two in hospital my doctors discovered the loss of consciousness was heart related. I had a number of tests and it was discovered that I had a slightly irregular heartbeat which in itself, means that sometimes it doesn’t work properly and the blood doesn’t rush to my head.

I’m normally pretty good at brushing things off but to be honest, I was terrified.

I’m 23, in the job of my dreams and I’m told I have heart issues.

My cousin died of similar issues in his 40’s, so unfortunately this kind of stuff can be hereditary.

Three days after leaving hospital I had another fainting episode at home in front of family who were visiting, so they took me straight back to hospital.

After spending a few days in the cardiac ward I went under the knife, and a monitor was placed on my heart so the specialists could better understand what was happening. Unfortunately this wasn’t the end of it!

That night my wound from surgery came open and I lost a lot of blood. It took the doctors over 7 hours to clot the blood but eventually it was all over… For now.

My family, colleagues and listeners were wonderful during all this. I guess you don’t realize what an impact you can have on people… I’m a pretty humble knockabout guy and I just couldn’t believe the amount of get well wishes from people in the FNQ community that I had never even met. I felt incredibly lucky to have so many amazing people around me.

I’m back at work now, doing what I love. If/when I faint again, with this monitor in, it should give the doctors a better understanding of what’s going on.

The scare has definitely given me more perspective and there is no way I’ll take a step back in my career, radio is everything to me.

Unfortunately these seizure like episodes can happen at any stage… I just hope it’s not when I’m on the verge of a good out during a break haha!