Election candidate Dave Hannay is barging on with his campaign for a Napier City Council seat despite a heart attack which put him in hospital last week.
Mr Hannay, 52, said that after heart stent surgery in Wellington he was feeling better than he had for some time and the experience had served as not only a "massive" warning for himself, but also a nudge for contemporaries to get aches and pains checked.
"I think it's actually been going on for some time," he said last night, reflecting on what he now believed were the signs he should have picked up on, as much as two years ago.
"I just didn't know about it, and didn't do anything about it," he said. "I think it's a male thing."
He started getting chest and other pains while setting-up sound equipment at the Cabana in Napier, eventually having to call on friends to help. But he went home without doing anything about it, until his partner called an ambulance.
Flown to Wellington Hospital for the surgery, he was back in action at the weekend, telling people at a candidates event in Pirimai about the experience.
While still in the campaign, he's taking doctors' advice and doesn't expect to be back at work at his King of Swords shop in Napier before next week.