With toddlers, playtime can go from playful to painful in a matter of seconds. From grabbing hair, stealing toys, or perhaps the worst, throwing things, parents have to be on their guard to avoid serious injuries. Savannah Guthrie, a co-host on The Today Show, learned this the hard way last week with her two-year-old son Charley.
Guthrie and Charley were playing with a toy train when he must have decided that the train needed to fly, straight into his mother’s eye. The accident resulted in Guthrie losing vision in her right eye for 24 hours. She told her fellow coworkers that the train “tore [her] retina” and caused blood to block her vision. The retina is a thin tissue on the back of the eye that takes in light and sends signals to the brain in order to recognize objects. To avoid surgery, Guthrie has had multiple laser procedures to repair the damage. Doctors have also advised her to “take it easy”, so that’s why she hasn’t been on the show lately.
Guthrie understands that accidents happen with toddlers, and she hopes to teach that to Charley. Right now, Charley is too young to really understand what happened. Guthrie said to her cohosts, “I wouldn’t want to make him feel bad for it”. However, when Guthrie was talking with her mother on the phone about the incident, Charley heard the conversation and innocently shouted: “I did it!” Guthrie still loves her little guy and doesn’t blame him for what happened.
Her recovery is going well and the doctors are “hopeful” that everything will turn out fine. Guthrie even hosted the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Thursday morning after the injury. She and co-host Hoda Kotb commented on the floats, balloons, and musical performances during the parade. Nothing can stop this devoted broadcaster from doing her job!
Guthrie has been working for the Today Show since 2007, starting as a journalist and becoming a cohost in 2011. During these years, she and her first husband Mark Orchard divorced after five years of marriage. She and political consultant Michael Feldman started dating and then got married in 2014. Five months after the wedding, she gave birth to their daughter Vale. Guthrie is as devoted to being a news anchor as she is to be a mother, and she’s doing a great job at both!