An ABC news reporter has confirmed he is ok and recovering after a scary moment this morning in which he appeared to almost faint while filing a live on-air report.
Michael Rennie, a Queensland-based ABC reporter, was broadcasting live on ABC News 24 from outside the JBS beef processing plant in Ipswich at approximately 9:13am this morning when the incident occurred.
Rennie was narrating over footage of the plant when he quite clearly began stumbling over his words and slurring, prompting host Joe O’Brien to quickly take over.
The camera then cut back to a silent but clearly distressed Rennie as O’Brien stated “We’ll just make sure Michael is OK there. Um, so we’ll get the cameraman to check on Michael and we’ll get our bosses there right away to make sure he’s OK.”
The rather frightening incident can be viewed in the video below.
Immediately following the broadcast, scores of viewers posted about their concern on social media.
@ABCaustralia @abcnews @JoeABCNews Is that reporter from QLD reporting on the meat plant job losses okay?
— Councilscribe (@councilscribe) September 9, 2020
Hope Michael the reporter on @abcnews is ok?
@JoeABCNews
🙌❤️— REGINA SORENSEN 👩🦯 (@BBreggie) September 9, 2020
Watching ABC NEWS 24. Is that reporter OK? That didn’t look good. I hope he’s all right.
— Eustace Scrubber (@Dragonsvoyage) September 9, 2020
https://twitter.com/docklandspaully/status/1303834866740420608
https://twitter.com/JohnBilling3199/status/1303834549424594945
A short time later O’Brien moved to assure viewers that Rennie was doing ok, asserting “I just want to assure our viewers that our reporter Michael Rennie is OK. We were having a chat to him in the last 5 or 10 minutes or so and he wasn’t able to continue. Yeah, we were a bit concerned about him, but he is OK. And we look forward to having a chat to him again soon.”
Rennie subsequently confirmed what had happened on his own Twitter feed, chalking the incident up to dehydration.
Thanks for all the concern about what happened on ABC news channel this morning. I was dehydrated and lost my train of thought. But I’m fine and I’ll be back at work tomorrow. Cheers
— Michael Rennie (@mf_rennie) September 10, 2020
Rennie was reportedly given the rest of the day off by bosses and was sent home to rest.
