DD Bangla anchor faints while reading news live, shares health update: 'It could have been fatal'

The production crew had informed her family after the incident and rushed her to a hospital. (Facebook)

As West Bengal grapples with severe heatwave, a video of a Doordarshan anchor fainting on live television has surfaced online. Lopamudra Sinha, who works at Doordarshan Bangla, also took to Facebook to share a health update.

Sinha mentioned that the incident happened on April 18, around 8.30 am while she was reading news live on DD Bangla. “It was very hot… my blood pressure dropped. I was feeling unwell even before I fainted. I thought drinking water would help so I asked the floor manager for some (sic.),” she said in the viral video.

Meanwhile, the studio was air-conditioned but it wasn't helping much. It was extremely hot that day.

The news anchor, who has about 21 years of experience, said that she rarely kept water on her desk because she only had to read the news for about 30 minutes and could manage without having a sip.

Things were, however, different on Thursday, when Sinha desperately needed water but it was a live telecast. “On Thursday, most of the news was in the general category which did not have any visuals to go with it. There were no bites. Had there been any visuals to run on live telecast, I could have used that break to drink water (sic.)," Sinha said.

“Finally, at the end of the show, there was a story with a visual bite and I used that opportunity to get some water from the floor manager. By that time, I still had three to four more stories to read. I thought I could manage to read them all, but when I was reading the news on the heatwave, my speech because slurred (sic.),” she added.

She, however, fainted soon after, prompting the floor manager and others to rush to her side, to sprinkle water on her face and fan her.

On her video update, Sinha said that things could have taken a turn for the worse if she had fainted while walking away from her seat. "It could have been fatal (sic.)," she said.

The production crew had informed her family after the incident and rushed her to a hospital.

"I am feeling much better now. Even though my blood pressure is still fluctuating, I feel much better (sic.)," Sinha said in the video that was uploaded on Saturday.