HeartCry founder Paul Washer expected to be released from hospital following heart attack

HeartCry Missionary Society founder Paul Washer is expected to be released from the hospital this weekend after undergoing an emergency surgery due to a massive heart attack.

Washer's life-threatening emergency was brought to the public's attention around 11 p.m. EST on Monday night by Jhonattan Madueño, who explained that the pastor suffered the heart attack about 30 minutes before he posted a statement about it on Facebook. A tweet from the G3 Conference, where Washer is a featured speaker scheduled for January 2018, indicated that the 55-year-old missionary suffered the heart attack at his Virginia home.

In a series of social media posts on Tuesday night, Washer's team explained that there was not much news about his condition, although they stated that the pastor was "resting" and recovering slowly. Another post revealed that there has been an improvement in his condition following the emergency surgery.

"I suspect he'll be out in the next couple of days. I was just with him a few minutes ago," Kevin Hite, operations director at HeartCry, told The Christian Post on Wednesday.

Hite said that no doctor expected Washer to have a heart attack based on his health.

While preaching at the 2017 G3 Conference in January, Washer revealed that he was debilitated by an unspecified illness. However, Hite said that he could not speculate whether Washer's illness in January was related to the heart attack.

"I don't know that it necessarily was. He had a heart attack. There was some blockage in an artery. It may or may not [have] but there is no way to say that was indicative or somehow a precursor [to a heart attack]," Hite said.

"He has a number of particularly chronic pain issues and that is no secret, but he's had some totally unrelated issues of late. The heart attack was a complete surprise," he added.

Some of Washer's supporters have tried to establish fund raising campaigns to help with his recovery, but his team said that they were not raising any money for the pastor.

Hite explained that there had been cases when people tried to use Washer's name to make money for themselves, although the pastor had never solicited funds for HeartCry or for himself. He noted that HeartCry is supported by people who were moved to give through Washer's "public preaching ministry."

Washer is best known for his infamous sermon known as "Shocking Youth Message," which was preached to around 5,000 youth at a 2002 youth evangelism conference in Montgomery, Alabama.

In the sermon, he preached that American Christianity is mostly wrong and most of them, even those who profess to know Christ, could end up in hell. The pastor called on the youths at the event to examine themselves to determine whether they are genuinely born-again. The 2002 sermon has since garnered nearly two million views on YouTube.