WSFA News Anchor John O'Connor has been off the air and while that is almost unheard of during sweeps, he has a good reason.

The station says that O'Connor had unexpected open heart surgery and six bypasses Wednesday, Nov. 5.

“I went from not even thinking about it and less than a week later, I'm on the operating table,” O'Connor said.

He says it started two weeks ago when he was walking the two flights of stairs to his apartment like usual, but this time he noticed a weird feeling in his chest. He decided it probably wasn't anything, but over the weekend it progressed into pain in the right side of his chest and numbness in his arm.

He decided to go to a walk-in clinic on the way to work that Sunday, and they sent him to the emergency room. A number of tests, blood work, and ultimately a cardiac catheterization, or heart cath, revealed “significant blockage” in several arteries.

Three days later he had open-heart surgery and six bypasses at a Montgomery hospital.

“[This was] an eye opening thing for me because I would have been the last guy in the world to have any suspicion. I would've told you that I'm not in very good shape, but I would've been the last guy in the world to think I would've been having open heart surgery,” O'Connor said.

Doctors say John's heart is otherwise healthy and that his condition was genetic.

John said he hopes by telling his story that people will pay more attention to the little symptoms before it's too late.

Plus, you know it's ratings, so what better time to talk about an Anchor's health issues.

Just saying....