Monday 4 July 2022 08:21 AM How RBA boss Glenn Stevens nearly DIED one day after getting the job trends now
Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe has revealed he is lucky to be alive after facing two near brushes with death in the months leading up to him taking the top job.
Australia's top central banker, 60, had to be rushed to hospital twice in 2016 as the result of complications from a split neck artery which supplies blood to the brain.
Up until that time he had an almost unblemished record of good health having only taken one day off work in 35 years due to an infected tooth.
Dr Lowe dramatically collapsed and lost consciousness slumping from his front row seat shortly after addressing a conference of central bankers in May 2016
The then-deputy governor of the RBA had only been told the night before he would be the bank's next governor, taking over from Glenn Stevens.
Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe has revealed he had two near-death experiences in 2016 as the result of a split neck artery that caused a life-threatening blood clot
Dr Lowe's wife, Australian Prudential Regulation Authority official Jocelyn Parker, was put on an urgent flight to get Dr Lowe's side and told to expect the worst
Despite Dr Lowe insisting he could go back to his hotel room, Canadian banking officials called the ambulance and he was rushed to Ottawa Hospital where the life-threatening blood clot was discovered and they conducted emergency surgery.
'The next thing I knew, some hours had passed and I woke up in hospital,' Dr Lowe told the Australian Financial Review.
'They said if it happened alone in a hotel room or on a plane, I would have died.'
The artery split was likely caused by Dr Lowe's awkward upright sleep on the flight from Sydney to Canada with a hostess waking him at one stage because his neck was 'bobbling around'.
Dr Lowe was announced to take over from former RBA governor Glenn Stevens but his health problems were a source
