KGO’s Pete Wilson was admitted to Stanford Hospital’s emergency room for an anxiety attack the night before he was to undergo a hip-replacement operation that turned fatal, the Merc reports. Wilson also expressed his anxiety during the final hour of his KGO-AM 810 talk show, during which he gave this monologue [MP3 or text] about his grave fears about what was supposed to be a routine operation.

“He was anxious, so they put him in there,” Wilson family spokesman Chapin Day told the Merc. “His wife was with him the whole night.”

Day said Wilson was monitored in the ER, and an electrocardiogram revealed no unusual heart rate patterns. Surgery began at 11 a.m. the next day, with Wilson under general anesthesia, Day said. Within about 30 minutes, Wilson suffered a massive heart attack. Efforts to revive him failed, and Wilson died the next day.

“If you have such an anxiety attack that you end up in the emergency room, it might have warranted a little more intervention or possibly postponing the surgery a couple of days to understand the anxiety before operating,” said nurse Teresa Corrigan, who teaches the center’s “Prepare for Surgery” class at UCSF’s Osher Center for Integrative Medicine.