Suzanne Paul is on the mend after collapsing during a Zoom call with a group of rest-home residents.
The New Zealand TV personality was taken to hospital after the collapse, which happened while she was speaking virtually to residents from retirement village firm Ryman Healthcare.
"Apparently, I'd been talking for about 50 minutes but that's nothing for me. As you know, I can talk all day," Paul told The AM Show. "Apparently I [then] faceplanted onto the table and then, according to Ryman Healthcare, after a couple of seconds, I sat up and said, 'oh, where was I? Let's carry on.'
"Then… I went again, this time off the chair - so next thing I know I woke up on the floor wondering why I was on the floor… it was very scary."
Paul said it's believed her collapse came down to a combination of low blood pressure, hereditary high cholesterol, a leaky heart valve and stress.
She also revealed she was due to get married to her fiancee Patrick but had to cancel due to COVID-19 restrictions.
"I do think that probably stress played a big part - not [the] stress of the Zoom or speaking - work doesn't stress me out, it never has but… due to COVID, Patrick and I have had to cancel our wedding which would have been in a couple of weeks.
"For weeks and weeks, we'd just kept saying, 'watch the news, listen to every report, we're in level 3 now - will we got down to 2.5 then 2 and will we be safe? And every day it was all I could think about and I kept making new plans."
Paul said she's now on the mend and had a message for New Zealanders struggling amid extended COVID-19 restrictions.
"This too shall pass," she said. "Just that sentence has kept me going many times because, you know, things will always change… if you're having a really crappy time right now, you've just got to hang in there and try and look for the joys in life - it's the little things."
