Former CNN Anchor’s Near Death Experience: ‘If I’m going to die, I’m going to die’

By Chris Ariens 

Leon Harris, the main anchor at Washington DC ABC affiliate WJLA, will return to work Monday after a month-long illness. On August 1, Harris, who spent 20 years as an anchor at CNN in Atlanta, was rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with necrotizing pancreatitis, a severe inflammation of the pancreas. Harris was hospitalized for two weeks. His lungs filled with fluid. His stomach was so swollen he looked 8 months pregnant. His heart stopped twice. From WJLA:

By the following Thursday, Aug. 8, he asked if he was going to die. And the next day, Harris says he simply lost the will to live and resigned himself to death. “If I’m going to die, I’m going to die,” he recalls thinking. But he also remembers thinking about his wife Dawn and not wanting to succumb. “If I go to Hell, it’s not because I quit,” he says.

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