“If you’re a TV reporter who stands in front of a camera, take my experience as a warning,” tweeted NBC News Florida correspondent Kerry Sanders ominously today. Attached was a harrowing open letter explaining the circumstances of his recent disappearance. It turns out his job left him unable to see for a while.
“I was in front of a TV camera from 7:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. reporting for the Today show, MSNBC, and Nightly News at the [Michael] Dunn trail in Jacksonville Florida,” Sanders wrote. “What I didn’t know, and no one else did either, was the HMI light malfunctioned and the UV light was slowly burning my corneas, as well as frying the skin on my face.”
The bizarre, on-the-job injury couldn’t have come at a worse time:
It was especially awful as my brother and sister and I had spent almost two years coordinating schedules to travel together to release my mother’s ashes in the Andes of Peru where she grew up.
We stuck to our plan and made our way south. My sister was sort of my seeing eye-dog, and my brother played the pack mule, carrying my luggage. More than 7,000 feet up, along the Inca Trail, we found the perfect spot to release her ashes. While there may be a detail or two I couldn’t make out, I could see the stunning beauty my mother always talked about when she would remember her childhood.
Sanders is now 80 percent healed with a full recovery expected, but consider this a PSA for some of our more cable news-happy politicians out there.
