Sonny Bill Williams has life-saving heart surgery

Former New Zealand rugby centre Sonny Bill Williams said he underwent life-saving heart surgery after doctors found an undetected heart defect from birth.

Williams, 41, said in a YouTube video published on Friday that the defect was discovered earlier in the year while he was having a neck operation.

“The doctors both said it was a miracle,” Williams said. He said doctors told him his heart “was about to pop” and that without the check, “it would have been a case of a perfectly healthy person dropping dead.”

Surgeon Michael O'Keefe said Williams had a Ross procedure to replace a valve and that the operation took more than four hours. O'Keefe said Williams had been playing with a “handicap” he had not realised at the time.

Williams won Rugby World Cups with New Zealand in 2011 and 2015, won Australia's National Rugby League in 2004, and later boxed professionally. He retired from rugby five years ago.