Monday’s episode of The Block 2026 took a scary turn when Courtney’s SVT, a cardiac condition, flared up, causing her heart rate to skyrocket and leaving her lightheaded.
In an exclusive interview with Chattr, Courtney opened up about being diagnosed with the condition in 2020 and revealed what she believes may have triggered her episode on The Block.
“It’s not something I was born with. I was diagnosed in 2020 with SVT,” she explained. “It was basically one moment in 2020 when I was having a family lunch and I thought I was having palpitations, but then I was starting to get quite lightheaded and my heart’s going at 230 to 240 beats per minute, and so I had to call the ambulance in the end, and they put the ECG on and diagnosed me.”
Courtney said stress is one of the biggest triggers for her SVT episodes, and revealed that viewers will see her struggle with some of her tradies this week, which may have contributed to the flare-up.
“This week was a particularly bad week,” she said. “I was highly, highly, highly stressed this week, and so a lot of factors played into having the episode.”
In fact, Courtney revealed just how dramatically her SVT episodes increased during filming, estimating that she experienced around 15 episodes while on The Block, compared with approximately six across the entirety of last year. Since filming wrapped, she hasn’t experienced a single episode.
“During The Block, I was highly, highly stressed. Whilst I look cool, calm and collected on the show, my mind is going a million miles an hour, and I probably went into SVT 15 times, but since the show, I haven’t gone into SVT at all.
“Last year, I probably had about six episodes just in my normal everyday life. So it just depends what I’m going through in life.”
While Courtney couldn’t definitively attribute the episode to the stress of The Block, she acknowledged that the high-pressure environment may have played a role, alongside other triggers.
“It could have been stress. It could have been me not drinking enough water. It could have been sometimes if I bend it up really quick, it can trigger it. There are a lot of things that can trigger it.”
Courtney added that Monday night’s episode wasn’t actually the first time she’d experienced an SVT episode during the season; it was simply the first time the cameras caught it.
“Unfortunately, I just happened to have the cameras on me when I went into it this day, and it was a particularly bad one. I’d already had a couple of episodes of SVT before the cameras caught me, and I would just go hide and sort it out myself in the bathroom. But, in this moment, I was sort of caught on camera and they knew something was going on. So it all sort of came out then.”
Did Courtney consider leaving The Block over her health concerns?
Despite experiencing so many episodes during filming, Courtney said she never considered leaving The Block because of her condition and explained that she had professional checks before joining the show.
“Never for a second did I think I need to quit for this,” she said. “I will never let anything affect my normal everyday life. SBT’s never been something that… I’m in communication with my cardiologist, and he supports everything I do, and I get the sign-off from him, and it’s something that isn’t as long as I keep it under control and can get my heart back to normal — it’s not going to kill me.”
While Courtney said her SVT can be frightening when an episode strikes, she tries not to let the condition impact her quality of life.
“If you have a heart disease, it’s probably the one that you want because it’s not as life-threatening as a lot of the other ones. But it’s still very, very, very scary when it happens,” she explained.
The site manager also explained how she deals with an SVT episode when it flares up.
“It’s basically an electrical fault in my heart, rather than muscular. So it just means when I’m doing something where I’m really stressed, or if I’m dehydrated, my heart can go from normal heart rate and just skyrocket. There are maneuvers I can do to control it myself, to reset the heartbeat rhythm. That doesn’t always work, and when it doesn’t, I do need to go into emergency resuscitation, where they give me medication that restarts my heart, and then it just starts.”
The Block airs Sunday – Wednesday on Channel 9 and 9Now.
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