Chad Michael Murray is reflecting on a terrifying hospital experience.
While appearing on the Great Company podcast on Friday (August 8), the 43-year-old Freakier Friday actor opened up about his near-death experience when he was hospitalized as a teenager.
Keep reading to find out more…“I was 15, and my intestines had twisted,” Chad shared. “I was hospitalized for two and a half months. It was a lot.”
“We had surgery. I had internal bleeding, [and] I lost 50 percent of my blood,” he continued. “I was on my deathbed.”
The One Tree Hill alum went on to say that he doesn’t have too many memories from his hospitalization because he was “in and out of consciousness.”
“I just remember seeing my father, the weakest I’d ever seen him, and a priest at the end of my bed,” Chad recalled. “They’re talking about last rites and all that stuff, and [the nurse] gave me a blood transfusion to save my life. It saved my life.”
He added, “Regardless, you’re in there for two months and, you know, my organs shut down because you have blood all coagulated around them, and they had to wait till everything. So, anyway, I had to have a second surgery to clean everything up.”
While in the hospital, Chad said his main nurses, two women named Sandy and Alana, inspired him to pursue a career in Hollywood.
“Alana says to me, ‘Oh gosh, you should model,’” Chad recalled. “I was like, ‘I don’t want to model. I want to be an actor. Like, I love film and television. I want to give this gift to other people.’ She’s like, ‘Well, you can segue from modeling into acting. Look, when you get out, I’m hooking you up with a modeling company I know.’ And she meant it.”
After nearly three months in the hospital, Chad was finally discharged.
“I got out. I went from, like, 180 to 118 pounds. I was a skeleton when I got out. It was the scariest thing ever,” Chad said. “I remember looking in the mirror the first time going, ‘Who is that?’ I cried [and] I couldn’t believe that I was looking back at that guy.”
He went on to say that navigating the near-death health scare at such a young age has helped him maintain important relationships in his life.
“I started my relationship with God, and my relationship with my father became really close,” the actor explained. “My dad [was] raising five kids on his own [and] came to the hospital every single day, and he spent countless nights with me when he had four more kids at home.”
“The man is tough as nails, and he did that for us,” Chad added of his dad. “I’m overly, like, beyond grateful. That’s when our relationship really bonded.”
If you missed it, Chad made a very rare red carpet appearance with wife Sarah Roemer and two of their three kids!