If you notice something a little different tonight on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, you can blame Clark W. Griswold. The Nightly News anchor ruptured a disk Saturday while offloading his Jeep Grand Cherokee after a family vacation to Rhode Island. Williams tells TVNewser, “I unloaded the car, including bags on the roof rack [and] Monday woke up with a shooting pain down my left leg.”
At first, Williams thought it was sciatica. But a trip to the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, Wednesday determined he ruptured the disk between his “4th & 5th vertebrae.” The injury has meant personal and professional adjustments: Williams is using a cane to walk. “The only thing worse than walking is sitting,” he says.
For years the Nightly broadcast has begun with the anchor standing. Not this week. With the aid of cushions and anti-inflammatories, Williams has been sitting for the entire broadcast. He says his “greatest pain management device has been thinking back to his trips to Walter Reed” Medical Center, visiting wounded troops.
Williams directs his angst at the Chevy Chase character, Clark W. Griswold: the dad who wanted to do it all. Pack up the family, drive down the road, and return safe and sound (without losing a beloved aunt along the way).
Williams says he’ll get “progressively better, if treated right.” As for future lifting adventures?: “my wife gave our teenage son the mantle” of baggage handling from now on.