New Delhi: Stand-up comedian Raju Srivastava suffered a cardiac arrest while working out in a gym and was taken to Delhi’s All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) today. He is out of danger now, his friend and colleague Sunil Pal has said.
Raju Srivastava, 58, was working out on a treadmill when he complained of chest pain and collapsed. His trainer took him to AIIMS where he was given cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) twice and revived.
“Srivastava had to be resuscitated twice and was rushed to catheterisation lab for emergency angiography,” news agency PTI reported, quoting an unnamed source.
According to news agency ANI, Mr Srivastava underwent an angioplasty and is “responding to the treatment.”
The comedian is currently under observation at the hospital. The incident brought into focus a string of deaths in recent years of middle-aged celebrities from heart ailments.
“These days, there’s a culture of excessively working out. Trainers recommend constant scaling up of workout. People shouldn’t do aggressive working out. Exercising can trigger deaths,” Dr Balbir Singh, Chairman of Cardiac Sciences at Max Healthcare, told NDTV.
Dr Raju Vyas, Director of Cardiac Sciences at Fortis Hospital, Shalimar Bagh, said, “On an average, people are getting heart attacks two decades earlier. We’re seeing this trend in the last 10 years. People should get a medical certificate before starting working out.”
Sunil Pal, also a stand-up comedian, said that Mr Srivastava is now out of danger.
“He is doing fine now. He is out of danger,” Mr Pal said in a video on Instagram.
Mr Srivastava, one of the most successful stand-up comedians in the country, is a popular name on television.
He has been active in the entertainment industry since the late 1980s, even though he first received recognition after participating in the first season of stand-up comedy show “The Great Indian Laughter Challenge”.
He has appeared in Hindi films like “Maine Pyar Kiya”, “Baazigar”, “Bombay to Goa” and “Aamdani Atthani Kharcha Rupaiya”. He was one of the contestants on “Bigg Boss” season three.
Mr Srivastava is the current chairman of the Film Development Council of Uttar Pradesh.
