For suffers of panic attacks, they can come on randomly and at the most inopportune times. One weatherman in Australia had a panic attack while live on the air during the middle of his segment. He had to halt the broadcast to recover.
ABC News Breakfast weatherman Nate Byrne had to stop his segment on the weather. He revealed to viewers that he was currently experiencing a panic attack. As such, he would need a bit of time to get things under control.
"I'm going to need to stop for a second," the meteorologist said. "Some of you may know that I occasionally get affected by some panic attacks, and actually that's happening right now." He then called for his co-host Lisa Millar to take over while he recovered from what he was going through.
Weatherman Has Panic Attack
The weatherman later came back and expressed his apologies for the episode. "Sorry if I gave anybody a bit of a scare," he told the audience.
Byrne published an article in 2022 where he discussed his struggles with panic attacks..
"As I stood there under the studio lights, talking to people having their morning coffee and wiping sleep from their eyes, my heart was racing, I was gasping for breath and sweat was pouring out of every pore as my brain screamed 'RUN!'" Byrne said.
It's actually not the first time that the weatherman had a panic attack on TV. He said, "I had my first-ever panic attack live on TV. It was absolutely terrifying, and completely reshaped my understanding of mental health."
He also said, "Anxiety had never been an issue in my life before, even though high-stress situations weren't a stranger. But this time I wasn't a Naval Officer moments away from running a warship aground or standing in front of a stadium filled with 12,000 people hosting my first internationally-televised live event."
Byrne said he's learned to deal with his disorder. He wrote, "I'd later find out that what I was experiencing was diagnosable and manageable, but in that moment I thought that my career was over — something was taking control of me without my permission or understanding, and it was preventing me from doing what made me, me."
