FOX sideline reporter Pam Oliver took a bit of a shock two weeks back during the warmups before the Colts and Giants' preseason game. While she was conducting an interview for her piece on NFL referees for Showtime's 60 Minute Sports, Colts backup quarterback Chandler Harnish hit her in the face with a very errant pass. Looked pretty painful, but Oliver soldiered on and continued the telecast.
That's what adrenaline can help you accomplish, but once that goes away, the pain sets in. That's what happened when Oliver relaxed in the car riding back to the hotel after the game, where she suffered a pounding headache. This was one of her many concussion symptoms that started to appear after the accident.
She got diagnosed with a concussion when she vistied the doctor for a CT scan after waking up in discomfort the following Monday. “The sensitivity to light started and some nausea too," Oliver said. "My whole body was sore.”
Oliver had to spend five days in the dark because of her consequent sensitivity to light. She also said she has a very hazy recollection of the incident that caused her that misery: “I asked the people around me, ‘What happened?’ They told me I just got hit in the head with a football.”
Oliver has been working as a sideline reporter for decades, but the experience gave her perhaps one of her most in-depth views of what a player goes through on a weekly basis. “Players don’t want to be reminded about their concussions. They don’t want to be known as the guy who went down with one," Oliver said. "They downplay it. Then it happens to me and I start wondering how these guys go back to being hit, taking all that punishment, a week or two later.”
Oliver will return to the sidelines on Sept. 8 in the Packers vs. 49ers game.
RELATED: Video Gallery: A Recent History of Sideline Reporters Being Hit by Objects
[via Daily News]
