NEW YORK, Sept 7 (AFP) - Former US president Bill Clinton was recovering well and breathing on his own Tuesday, after undergoing open heart surgery that doctors said had come just in time to avert a major heart attack.
"Everything is going very well," said Bob Kelly, a member of the medical team that gave Clinton a quadruple bypass in a four-hour operation on Monday at New York Presbyterian Hospital.
"That being said, the president has had major, major surgery, and it is a significant recuperation that he's about to undergo," Kelly told the NBC network's "Today" show.
"The first things in the first couple days are making sure that he is breathing on his own again, which he is," he added.
Clinton, 58, was admitted to hospital on Friday complaining of chest pains and shortness of breath. He was wheeled into the operating theater on Monday after blood-thinners had cleared his system, easing the risk of heavy bleeding.
Doctors said that had Clinton delayed seeking treatment, the consequences could have been disastrous.
Several of the former president's main blood vessels were found to have a blockage of well over 90 percent, putting him at imminent threat of a major heart attack.
Clinton's heart was stopped for 73 minutes during the operation, a now common but still delicate procedure, which bypasses blocked arteries so that blood can flow properly.
Some 300,000 bypass operations are performed in the United States every year, with a success rate of around 99 percent, but the surgeons at New York Presbyterian acknowledged the extra pressure involved in treating a former commander-in-chief.
"The pressure here is to avoid bad decision making because of over concern about doing too much or too little surgery ... being too bold or too timid," said Craig Smith who led the surgical team.
"So it's the decision making and judgement that take the heat here. That is what we mostly struggled with yesterday," Smith told CNN.
Many newspapers Tuesday took obvious delight in reporting the fact that Smith, the hospital's chief of cardiothoracic surgery, donated 2,000 dollars to President George W. Bush's re-election campaign this year.
Clinton is expected to stay in hospital for between four and six days, after which he will undergo a substantial period of recuperation -- raising questions over his plans to hit the campaign trail in support of Bush's Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry.
Clinton reportedly spent 90 minutes Saturday night talking to Kerry from his hospital bed and advising the White House hopeful on his campaign tactics ahead of the November 2 election.
While doctors said they expected the Clinton to make a full recovery, they added that diet would be a crucial factor for the former president whose love of junk food is well known.
Clinton has remained a force in his party after serving in office between 1993 and 2001, and is the only Democrat to have won the White House since Jimmy Carter in 1976.
He remains one of the best-loved figures in US politics despite the sex scandal that led to his impeachment. His autobiography, released earlier this year, rocketed onto the best-seller lists.
Tens of thousands of get-well wishes have poured in over the past few days, most of them e-mail messages sent to the website of Clinton's presidential library.