A YORK professor who researches health treatments including air ambulance rescues and stent surgery will tell on TV tonight how he took his research too far – when he had a heart attack, was flown to hospital and had a stent inserted.

Professor Ben Van Hout, a health economist who researches the cost effectiveness of the treatments given to patients, features on an episode of Helicopter ER.

Ben said he had been working from home, sitting at his desk, when he began experiencing chest pains.

“I had a strange pressure on my chest,” he said. “At the beginning I thought it was nothing, but after it persisted for a couple of minutes I realised that it could be a heart attack.”

Ben called the emergency services who quickly arrived and performed an ECG, which showed signs of a major heart attack requiring urgent treatment.

With time of the essence, the Yorkshire Air Ambulance was deployed to fly him to Leeds General Infirmary where, within 10 minutes of his arrival, he was having the life-saving procedure that he had been researching - a coronary angioplasty, where consultants use a balloon to stretch open blocked arteries to remove a blood clot from a patient’s heart before a stent is inserted.

He has since had a good recovery and has been given the all-clear by doctors.

He said: “The faster you are at hospital, the better the results are and of course going in the helicopter decreases the time between symptoms and having a stent placed.

“I’m a Professor of health economics and I did research on the cost effectiveness of helicopters and the cost effectiveness of the stent procedure I was given. I have done research into most of the things that have happened to me and the medication I was on.

“Given all the research I have done in this area, I feel like I may have taken my research a little bit too far. That was not a good idea. I can only be thankful to everyone doing such a good job. I can’t believe how lucky I am.”

Helicopter ER is at 9pm on Channel Really, on Freeview 17.