Bob Odenkirk opens up about his near-fatal heart attack on the set of 'Better Call Saul'

After pandemic-related delays, the Breaking Bad prequel, Better Call Saul, is on track to air its final season later this year. But the series almost had a premature — and permanent — finale when its leading man, Bob Odenkirk, suffered a heart attack during production last summer. In a new interview with The New York Times, the actor and comedian opened up about his near-death experience, and how his co-star, Rhea Seehorn, came to his rescue.

"We were shooting a scene, we'd been shooting all day, and luckily I didn't go back to my trailer," Odenkirk remembers of that fateful moment in July. After filming wrapped, he headed to a part of the set where he and Seehorn enjoy between-scenes downtime. "I went to play the Cubs game and ride my workout bike, and I just went down. Rhea said I started turning bluish-gray right away."

Thinking quickly, Seehorn called in two members of the Better Call Saul crew — health safety supervisor, Rose Estrada, and assistant director, Angie Meyer — who administered CPR to the unconscious actor and placed an automated defibrillator on his chest. As Odenkirk later learned, it took three attempts to re-start his pulse. An ambulance arrived and transported him to an Albuquerque hospital, where doctors provided further treatment.

While the timing of his heart attack was a shock, Odenkirk admits that he'd known for awhile that he was at risk for a possible cardiac event. "I'd known since 2018 that I had this plaque buildup in my heart," he says, adding that he'd delayed starting treatment for his condition when his doctors disagreed over how urgent a problem it was. His on-set collapse was caused by one of those pieces of plaque breaking up, requiring doctors at the hospital to perform immediate surgery. "They blew up the little balloons and knocked out that plaque and left stents in two places"

After a six-week recovery period, Odenkirk returned to the Better Call Saul set and completed production. But that close brush with death was never far from his thoughts, especially as he asked the cast and crew to fill him in on what happened while he was unconscious. "That’s its own weirdness," Seehorn remarks. "You didn’t have a near-death experience — you’re told you had one."

Better Call Saul will premiere later this year on AMC