Ronnie McDowell says the stroke he suffered onstage earlier this summer could have easily been fatal.

McDowell was in the middle of a set at Oley, Pa.’s Summer Solstice Music Festival when he started slurring his words and forgetting lyrics. His son and tour manager, Ronnie McDowell, Jr., paused the show to ask if he was feeling all right.

“And I said, ‘No, I think I’m having a stroke,'” McDowell remembers in a new interview with Taste of Country.

He was rushed to a Pennsylvania hospital, where the stroke was confirmed.

How Serious Was Ronnie McDowell’s Stroke?

McDowell knew he would need surgery to address the blockage that caused his stroke. But after that original hospital visit in Pennsylvania, doctors told him it would be okay for him to go home and arrange for surgery there, instead of having an emergency procedure onsite, because of one very important, and potentially lifesaving, advantage.

“[The doctor] said, ‘I’m gonna let you go home, and let me tell you why,'” the singer continues.

“I’ve been doing this 30-something years,” he remembers the doctor saying. “I listened to your heart, and you’ve got the strongest heart I have ever heard.”

“He said, ‘That’s what saved you. Because you were 70, almost 80 percent blocked,'” McDowell says. “He said, ‘Your heart was pumping through that really hard, and it scraped the plaque off.”

Read More: Ronnie McDowell Suffered Stroke Onstage, Needed Surgery

McDowell — who is 75 years old — has spent his whole life keeping his heart strong. Through every stage of his career, he says, he’s remained committed to a healthy diet and lifestyle.

Ronnie McDowell Was Eating Healthy at the Height of Fame

Back in 1977, when he was in his mid-20s and at the height of his country music success, McDowell said he was the only one on his tour bus who focused so scrupulously on health.

“I had five band members, and I had this big hit record called ‘The King Is Gone’ that I wrote about Elvis Presley, so they were putting me on shows with everybody all over this country and out of the country,” he recounts.

“I was eating correctly, really watching what I put in my body. Of course, I never smoked. And I’ve never taken drugs,” he said. “I always loved eating plant-based food.”

His band mates used to make fun of his diet choices.

“They would [say], ‘Oh, Ronnie’s on a diet, we’re all gonna starve,'” McDowell says.

“And guess what: They’re all dead. They’re gone. Because of lifestyle,” he continues. “Smoking and overeating, drinking too much, drugging, smoking weed, all that crazy stuf. And one of them was my little brother.”

Ronnie McDowell’s Terrifying Family Experience

McDowell says he felt “strange” in the couple of days leading up to the stroke, like “I couldn’t put a sentence together.”

“I thought, ‘What in God’s name is wrong with my brain? It won’t connect,'” he remembers, but says he pushed on to Pennsylvania to do the show.

McDowell’s second son Tyler Dean McDowell, who also spoke to Taste of Country, shares a different perspective on his dad’s health emergency.

McDowell and his sons are very close, and typically, both Tyler and Ronnie Jr. travel with the singer when he’s performing. But that weekend, Tyler stayed home to take care of his elderly cat, Turtle, who was having some health issues.

At the very moment when McDowell was in an ambulance on his way to the hospital, Tyler had an experience he can only explain as “divine intervention.”

He says he was walking up the stairs in his house when he heard his phone ring. He knew it was his dad calling, because he has a special ringtone just for McDowell.

But when he got to the phone, the ringing had stopped. Tyler called his dad back, and McDowell said he hadn’t intentionally dialed his number.

“He goes, ‘No, it must’ve been a butt dial.’ I said, ‘No worries, Dad.’ He said, ‘Well honey, I gotta let you go, I’m in an ambulance and they think I’ve had a stroke,'” Tyler relates. “And I literally hit the floor.”

Ronnie McDowell Had a Complicated Surgery

Tyler drove all night to Pennsylvania to be at his dad’s side.

“To see him in such a vulnerable state like that: It’s indescribably, honestly,” he remembers of that hospital experience.

The family’s ordeal wasn’t over. McDowell had surgery a couple of weeks after the stroke, and while the procedure was successful, it was also complicated.

The singer says that after he woke up, he immediately had to go under anesthesia again to address a complication that had come up.

“They woke me up the first time, and the doctor said, ‘Ronnie, I hate to tell you this, but we gotta put you back to sleep, because a…hematoma formed and we’ve got to wash it out,'” McDowell remembers.

McDowell had surgery on his neck. Tyler clarifies that doctors told them the hematoma that formed was related to the blood thinners McDowell was on.

According to Sanara MedTech, postoperative hematoma — a collection of old blood pooling under the skin — can pose an infection risk after surgery. Some small hematomas can reabsorb on their own, but in McDowell’s case, it was severe enough to require surgical cleaning.

The singer says the first couple of days after surgery were difficult, and he struggled to shake off the effects of going under general anesthesia not once, but twice.

“It was quite unbearable. The swelling and how I felt was just terrible,” he says. “But I’m improving every day.”

A New Perspective on Life

McDowell says he’s been overwhelmed by the outpouring of cards, messages and support from his fans.

“Most times I go to my mailbox there’s so much mail in there, I can’t hardly get it out,” he says with a laugh. “I’m sure the post office is wondering why Ronnie McDowell is getting so much mail all of the sudden.”

“But it just shows you how people care,” he adds.

Tyler says the experience has shifted his perspective: He’s going to prioritize a Disney World trip with his dad, recording his stories and asking questions he’ll want to know the answers to after McDowell is gone.

For McDowell’s part? He wants to see two of his entertainer friends, Bill Medley and Wayne Newton, perform live before they retire.

He’s also got new appreciation for how fleeting life can be.

“It makes you realize, every morning when we get up — you, me, every human — that we take for granted that all this stuff is just gonna work perfectly,” the singer reflects.

“You know, we’ll all so fearfully but wonderfully made,” he adds. “I mean, just, in a second, you can be dead. When the ticker stops ticking, you’re gonna leave here anyway.”

“It made me realize even more that we are all so fearfully but wonderfully made,” he reiterates.