The former AFL champion was only 46 and initially dismissed his chest pains as indigestion. Even the next morning, as the pains continued, it took Winmar's partner to convince him to see a doctor.

Thankfully they got to him in time. Winmar was admitted to hospital and had surgery to insert a stent in an artery. A great of the St Kilda Football Club, he'd had a heart attack and survived. It could have been very different.

That scary episode five years ago has served as Winmar's wake-up call. His father died the same way, aged 50, on the eve of Winmar's solitary appearance in an AFL grand final 20 years ago.

"The doctor looked at me and put me in a room with all these machines and said I was having a heart attack," Winmar recalls.

"It knocked me for six. I'd always trained hard and kept myself well with good food. It gave me a shake-up.

"They put a stent in an artery to keep it open. Afterwards I was so weak I couldn't get out of bed. I had to learn to walk again."

Having had the scare of a lifetime, Winmar made immediate changes

"At the time I had to change a lot of my dieting, the way you use salts in your food, alcohol, smoking. Those were the sacrifices you have to do as well, which don't come easily," Winmar said.

"You've got to make that choice if you want to fulfil the rest of your life. I'm 52 this year and hopefully [for] another 10 or 15 years I'll still be around."

Winmar is famously remembered as the Indigenous player who confronted the crowd and pointed to his skin at Victoria Park in the early 1990s in a triumphant stand against racism in footy. The moment was captured by an Age photographer, Wayne Ludbey, and remains an iconic image in footy history.

Then last year Winmar publicly supported his son to highlight the importance of gay rights. Winmar had little to do with his son for nearly 20 years and the pair hadn't spoken for a decade until, three years ago, Tynan Winmar decided it was time to reconnect and tell his father about his sexuality.

When Nicky Winmar decides to support a cause, he throws his full weight behind it. A chance meeting with the ACT chief executive of the Heart Foundation, Tony Stubbs, meant he simply had to endorse its message about a positive diet and lifestyle, especially with what's at stake in Indigenous communities.

"When I first met him, he took a step back, thought about it and said this is my opportunity to do something about it," Stubbs said.

The statistics around heart disease and Indigenous communities are disturbing.

"It's the biggest single killer of Indigenous Australians," Stubbs said.

"It's nearly twice the rate of death of non-Indigenous. We think that gap is too big and we actually want to do something about that and bridge that.

"Unfortunately the Indigenous smoking rate is about 43 per cent, which is about two-and-a-half times the non-Indigenous rate. And in remote areas it's actually 60 per cent.

"One of the key messages is around quitting smoking and making that decision. Certainly Nicky has done that. And he's found a huge amount of benefit from that."

Winmar has a simple message for those in Indigenous communities.

"It's the No.1 killer in Indigenous communities and towns and country areas that we come from," he said.

"It's important that you do go and see your local GP with symptoms that do happen. Ring triple zero and do something about it straight away."

Winmar is a Saints great across more than 200 matches but played his final AFL season with the Western Bulldogs in 1999. He enjoyed last year's Doggies breakthrough premiership, especially because they were coached by his friend Luke Beveridge, but the thought of St Kilda's first flag since 1966 brings a big smile to his face.

Perhaps a smile as big as the one he had when he realised he had a second chance.

"It would be good to see a Saints and Dogs grand final this year, if it ever happens."