Katey Sagal, 72, has shared her memories of the last time she saw her late co-star John Ritter, who passed away suddenly at the age of 54 in 2003. Sagal was present on September 11, 2003, when Ritter fell ill on the set of their ABC sitcom "8 Simple Rules."

"I was there, yes," Sagal told host Ted Danson on the podcast "Where Everybody Knows Your Name." "We were doing press pretty much at four in the afternoon on that day and then by 10 o'clock that night, he left us."

Ritter collapsed while working on the show and was transported to Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Burbank, California. His cause of death was later determined to be an aortic dissection, though doctors initially suspected a heart attack.

Sagal described feeling Ritter's presence in the years since his death. "It's interesting - I don't know what your belief system is, but I feel him around a lot," she said. "I just feel him around. His energy and his love of laughter and life."

She recalled Ritter's penchant for making jokes on set. "When I worked with John Ritter, he used to always, he would make such big jokes about face acting," Sagal said, noting his "rubbery face," while Danson remembered him as having a "sweet soul."

Previously, Sagal had discussed the day of Ritter's passing in a 2012 appearance on "The Howard Stern Show." She recounted that after shooting a promo, Ritter did not feel well and went to his room. Sagal and the rest of the cast and crew went home for the day, only to be informed five hours later that Ritter had been hospitalized.

"8 Simple Rules" premiered in September 2002, with Ritter and Sagal playing parents Paul and Cate Hennessy. The series paused production after Ritter's death and concluded its run in 2005 after three seasons.

Kaley Cuoco, who played one of the Hennessy daughters, also recently spoke about Ritter's impact. At a charity event in his memory last September, Cuoco told People that Ritter "changed the course of my life" and was instrumental in her early career. "He taught me to make people laugh, he told me to not take yourself so seriously, and he taught me to do anything for the joke. He had a heart that was bigger than this planet."