Invercargill Mayor Nobby Clark’s quadruple bypass heart surgery began 3pm on Wednesday and was expected to last into the night.
The operation at Dunedin Hospital was likely to take around six hours, and perhaps another hour before he was back in the intensive care unit, deputy Mayor Tom Campbell said.
Clark’s partner Karen Carter would be with him but in the circumstances, Campbell said he did not expect to hear any update until Thursday morning.
Clark suffered a minor heart attack a week earlier, and it served to identify the need for open-heart surgery.
He acknowledged from his hospital bed that the news that he needed the surgery came as a shock and, after being briefed on what the extensive operation entailed, he told Stuff: “I’m not looking forward to it, as you can imagine…but never mind. I know people who have had quadruple bypasses and they’re up and running, so it is what it is’’.
He has received “literally hundreds’’ of messages from wellwishers.
The recovery period typically takes two or three months and Campbell has picked up mayoral duties in the meantime, pledging no loss of momentum for the council’s work.
