Dermot Whelan revealed he called his wife to tell her he loved her before he had his first panic attack because he thought he was going to die.
The comedian and Today FM star said he had to pull over because he felt like he was having a heart attack.
Speaking on Claire Byrne Live on Monday, the 46-year-old said: “I felt a bit funny and I felt like someone was sitting on my stomach.
“I thought that is a bit weird and then it got more and more and I had difficulty breathing, so I pulled the car in and I was on the side of the road and I didn’t know what was happening.
“I thought I was having a stroke or a heart attack then I rang an ambulance and then I rang my wife to tell her I loved her so yeah I am the only comedian to arrive into the Kilkenny Cat Laughs festival in an ambulance.
“So it turned out I was having a panic attack, I had never had one before.”
The Dermot And Dave star, who has turned to meditation to cope with his stress added: “I was doing breakfast radio at the time so I was probably very sleep deprived which is never good for you.
“I had started doing stand-up comedy which is quite stressful in itself anyway and obviously I wasn’t managing that anxiety around performance terribly well.
“And alcohol definitely played a part in it, I had been drinking the night before and probably wasn’t in great shape either and all of those things gathered to be a perfect storm.”
RTE presenter Blathnaid Treacy also opened up about how the pressures of TV sparked her panic attacks.
The Co Wicklow broadcaster, 31, told Byrne: “For me it kind of built up so I was very stressed out at the time. I was working on a show called 2 Tube.
“I was working on it for about four years but it was my first big TV gig and I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to say yes to everything.
“I was kind of spreading myself very thin and doing interviews in London, and then flying back to do interviews in Dublin and then running to do live TV that evening and there was so much stress would build up and up and up and eventually I would hyperventilate.
“I would only really have my attacks at home and usually when Charlie was around, my now husband, obviously I felt safe around him and it just would erupt and I would hyperventilate.
“It felt like I couldn’t get enough oxygen in my lungs.
“And then you start to get dizzy and can’t breathe properly and then you get pins and needles in your hands.
Speaking of how she has learned to deal them, she added: “But for me I would have a calm voice in the back of my head saying, ‘Just cop on. You don’t need to do this, you are doing this to yourself’.”
