Rushed to hospital with abdominal pains

Ricky Gervais had to rush to hospital from the set of Derek suffering severe abdominal pains.

He called an emergency doctor after being in agony for 24 hours.

The comic gave blood and urine samples before being taken to hospital for a scan – which showed he had gastric flu.

Gervais said on his blog that he was relieved, since his first thought whenever he feels pain is that it’s ‘cancer of the everything’.

‘As soon as a doctor tells me I'm not going to die, I feel better,’ he says. ‘They are true healers.’

But he added that because he kept filming though his illness: ‘In some scenes Derek will look a little paler and sweatier than usual.’

Published: 3 Sep 2012