During his almost 80 years on this earth, A.J. Foyt has dodged the Grim Reaper in sprint cars with no cages, Indy cars with no fuel cells, stock cars with stuck throttles and runaway dirt cars. He’s been attacked by killer bees, fire ants and snakes plus almost drowning. He’s broken his back, legs, feet and arms. He’s survived blood clots and massive losses of blood.

But, just a couple weeks ago, he was closer to death than ever before. The legendary Indy car driver underwent a heart by-pass on Nov. 12 in Houston. The surgery was successful but Foyt developed complications and had to be put on a ventilator for eight days.

It was touch and go for a while before the tempestuous Texan fought back and, between the doctors, nurses and surgeons and Baylor-St. Luke’s Medical Center and the Texas Heart Institute, they brought him back to life.
On Tuesday night, after 25 days, he finally got to leave the hospital and go home.

“They tried to plant me didn’t they?” he said with a chuckle as he was preparing to leave the hospital on Tuesday night. “I guess one of my lungs wasn’t filling up with air and they told Lucy [his wife] and Larry [Foyt, his youngest son] it was not looking very good for old A.J. I don’t remember anything but they tell me I slept real well.”

Indy’s initial four-time winner, who turns 80 on Jan. 16, said he wasn’t sore and felt a thousand times better than he did a week ago “I got a walker and a cane so I’m gimping around but I couldn’t even do that last week so I’m getting stronger,” he said. “I’ve been bitching so much the last two weeks about getting outta here I guess they finally had enough and let me go. But, in all seriousness, these people are the best and they saved me.”

Believe it or not, Foyt probably saved himself. He was at his ranch tooling around on his beloved bulldozer on Nov. 7 when he got a searing pain in his chest. He called his doctor and went to the hospital where they performed a cardiac catheterization, found the massive blockages and proceeded with a three-way by-pass.  

“I don’t know why but for some reason I called the doctor that day,” he continued. “He told me not to drive but to get to the hospital as fast as I could. My stints (six) were all clogged and it was bad news. He said if I hadn’t called and come in, I would have been walking around and just fallen over like a big oak tree – dead. No warning, no pain, just dead.”

Asked if it was alright to call Parnelli Jones, Dan Gurney, Mario Andretti, Johnny Rutherford, Joe Leonard and Bobby Unser with the good news that he was alive and kicking, A.J. replied: “Yeah, that’s OK, but don’t give Unser my number, I’m too tired to listen to his b.s. for an hour.”

Gurney, his co-driver in their victory at LeMans in 1967, was delighted to hear Super Tex was on the mend – as was his longtime rival Andretti.

“Hell, he’s just a kid, he can’t go yet,” said Gurney, who turns 84 in April.

“I checked on him a couple times and was told he had some complications so this is really good news,” said Andretti, just a pup at age 74.

And the 81-year-old Jones, who tried to call Foyt with no success the past couple weeks, was relieved at the report but still couldn’t resist giving his old buddy a little shot.

“A.J. must have a big heart, one we never saw before.…Who knew?” laughed the 1963 Indy winner. “But this is good news. Now he’s gonna be an old man like the rest of us.”