Peter Hitchener was reading the news for Melbourne, Australia’s 9 News when he had a coughing fit.
When he lost the ability to speak for a moment, weather presenter Livinia Nixon took over.
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— Nine News Australia (@9NewsAUS) August 4, 2015
“I was not expecting that when I turned up to work today,” Nixon told the Herald Sun. “I’ve always got Hitchy’s back covered, we like to look after each other so I was happy to step in and help him out until he could get his throat working again and carry on with a seamless rest of the bulletin.”
“It was just one of those moments I think when you breathe and it goes down the wrong way.
“We all have them but for most of us we don’t have them in front of 600,000 people! That’s the hazards of live TV.
“It was lucky that I was just standing there with a microphone on and ready to go.”
They laughed about it later on twitter.
Having a laugh, and a water, with the lads about tonight's @9NewsMelb The fab @phitchener9 is all good to go now! pic.twitter.com/MiFj63ZjOH
— Livinia Nixon (@LNixon9) August 4, 2015