Glenn Burns explains his sudden shortness of breath on air last night

By RODNEY HO/ rho@ajc.com, originally filed Tuesday, June 7, 2016 on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog

During the 11 p.m. Channel 2 Action News newscast Monday night, chief meteorologist Glenn Burns was doing his weather forecast when he lost his breath for a moment. He threw it back to anchor Jovita Moore and they soon cut to commercial.

A few minutes later, after the commercial break, he told the viewers he felt okay and finished his forecast.

But given that Burns had open-heart surgery three months ago, he sent me a note to explain what had happened:

What happens is that my heart beat goes up for a few seconds.  When you have had major heart surgery, this is a little disconcerting to say the least.  It happens without any warning and when you are on air speaking at the time, that caused me to momentarily lose my breath.  I am fine 20 seconds later.  So last night, this happened and I lost it for 20 seconds and then resumed my weathercast after the commercial break.  I was with my cardiologist at Piedmont for three hours yesterday undergoing a battery of tests to figure out why this was happening. My heart is very healthy.  The valve they replaced is doing amazingly well and is 100% perfect.  The little heart palpation I get just may be a normal part of the healing process.  I am not in any danger.   So that is basically it.  I am told things are perfect.  I am working out better than ever at the gym.  And they say I should be 100% after 8 months to a year.

Details of his actual heart surgery from my original story in March here. 

My interview with Burns a few weeks later. 

UPDATE: 8/2/2016 It has happened at least a couple more times since then.

UPDATE: 2/3/2017: It happened again tonight.

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