Well over two weeks ago, Atlanta Hawks announcer Bob Rathbun convulsed and lost consciousness while he and analyst Dominique Wilkins previewed the team’s NBA home game against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Rathbun was listening to Wilkins speak when he leaned back and began what appeared to be some sort of seizure. It would later be reported that Rathbun was “treated for dehydration” and was “stable and responsive” as he headed to the hospital for “further evaluation.”
Since then, all has been quiet from Rathbun, until he spoke to the Athletic.
“The last thing Bob Rathbun remembers is sitting in a chair and thinking, “Just let me get through this.” His stomach had been doing flips for two hours. He already had made one unscheduled visit to the restroom, and he felt that something bad was coming around the corner again.
But he had worked before despite not feeling great, and he had a live shot to do for the Hawks’ pregame show and felt he couldn’t just bail, so he took his seat next to Dominique Wilkins, gripped a microphone, looked into a television camera and forced a smile.
“I was thinking: ‘I know I’m going to be sick again. But let me just get through this, then I’ll go vomit, and I’ll do the game, and then I’ll go home and go to bed,’” he said. “So I got in the chair and made some innocuous comment about AJ Griffin, and the next thing I remember was an EMT guy was standing in front of me.”
When he opened his eyes, he remembers seeing Wilkins and the EMT.
Wilkins: “Bob? Are you OK, buddy?”
Rathbun: “Yeah, I’m OK.”
Wilkins: “You passed out.”
Rathbun: “I did?”
Rathbun, who spent five days in the hospital and underwent numerous test, finally returned to the broadcasting booth after two weeks away.
As for the video of him passing out, he refuses to search his name to see it.
“I’ll never watch it,” he said.
Rathbun, 68, has been a broadcaster for the Hawks since 1996.
