New York TV weatherman Lonnie Quinn has returned to work after being out to deal with a brain injury. WCBS-TV’s Lonnie Quinn, who serves as the lead weather anchor for CBS, is back to work after taking a break to recover from a concussion. In addition to doing the weather for the New York City CBS station, he also appeared on CBS This Morning Saturday and was heard on WCBS-AM 880 doing weather there.
“I missed you guys more than you know,” Quinn said when he returned. “It’s these moments like this that just warms your heart and you think ‘I work with good people.'”
Quinn had explained to his audience of his health issues before taking a break from his job in March.
“It was a very major head injury. Once the MRI came back, that’s when the doctors came in and said ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. This is actually a traumatic brain injury, not just a concussion. You’ve got to be out of work for six to eight weeks, rest and relaxation,” Quinn had said.
During the March 14th broadcast of WCBS-TV’s evening newscast, anchor Kristine Johnson announced that Quinn, 61, “suffered a concussion” and initially thought he was “doing OK,” which he then revealed was not the case.
As Quinn explained, he recently “took a wallop on my head,” prompting a visit to the hospital and symptoms that he only discovered later on.
“The big concern in the medical community, they want to see if there’s a brain bleed because you can be dead in the morning if you don’t treat that,” Quinn said, confirming that he had a “negative” cat scan. “So I was free to go home. And I got on with my life, as we all do when we bang our heads, right?”
But during an 11 pm newscast before his medical leave, though, Quinn said he lost all vision out of his left eye. “There was no way I could go on. And then just as quickly as it began, it went away. It lasted maybe 15 minutes,” Quinn said.
“When you bang your head, your brain recovers nicely, but it only recovers while the body is sleeping,” he said.
To recover from the brain injury, Quinn is took roughly a one month medical leave from working, explaining he used the time to rest, perform physical rehab, and undergo cognitive therapy.
