Fumbling on television is not a new occurrence in the profession, but when it does so because of a sudden health problem, it raises alarm. Recently, an American news anchor started to have a stroke live on air, which caused her to stumble over her words and compelled the broadcast to end on Saturday morning. Reporting on NASA's postponed Artemis-I launch, Julie Chin of Tulsa NBC station KJRH found she suddenly couldn't speak the words she was reading from her teleprompter.
In a video that was posted on social media, Ms Chin was seen struggling to speak the lines she was reading from her teleprompter.
The video was tweeted by Mike Sington, a Senior Executive at NBCUniversal, and it went viral.
Ms Chin struggled to continue the broadcast while confused and stuttering, but she eventually discovered that she was entirely unable to read her script aloud.
"I'm sorry, something is going on with me this morning and I apologise to everybody," she finally said, tossing the broadcast over to the weather team, "Let's just go ahead and send it on to meteorologist Annie Brown."
Ms Chin was heard attempting to apologise off-camera as Annie Brown seamlessly took up the show.
"Julie, we love you so much, we love you so much," Ms Brown then said with a laugh as the broadcast cut to her. "We all have those days," she added.
Later, Ms Chin said on Facebook on Sunday night that she was in good health and that her doctors thought she had only experienced "the beginnings of a stroke, not a full stroke."
Ms Chin said that although she had felt great before the broadcast, her health quickly and dramatically deteriorated.
While undergoing treatment for her stroke, Ms Chin shared one picture of herself in the hospital. She affirmed that she was fine and that she planned to return to work soon.
She also complimented a few of her coworkers who, in her words, immediately acted after realising what was going on.
