Gundula Gause about feeling weak on TV
“I suddenly felt that I was incredibly tired”
Gundula Gause suffered a bout of weakness in December.
© ZDF / Klaus Weddig / [M] Meike Wittenstein
Presenter Gundula Gause suffered a faint attack in front of the cameras in mid-December. Now she explains what led to it.
“heute journal” presenter Gundula Gause (58) described her attack of weakness on TV as “unnecessary”. In an interview with “Bild” she said about the incident on December 18th: “That one evening was just bad luck – and totally unnecessary.” Gause adds: “I probably should have just called in sick that day because I sensed that something was wrong. But I still thought I could manage it. Today I know better.”
Over 4.6 million viewers witnessed the incident. A few minutes into the broadcast, Gundula Gause suddenly had problems reading and speaking the news. She stopped co-moderating the “heute journal”. Dunja Hayali (49), who spontaneously took over the moderation for her colleague, was able to announce at the end of the program that Gundula Gause was feeling better again.
She was “pulled to the side at the right moment and placed on a chair,” Gause remembers in “Bild.” She is “infinitely grateful” to her colleagues. She also gave Dunja Hayali a “big compliment”: “She saved the show!”
“Several infections on top of each other”
Gause also explained the reason for her attack of weakness: she had had several infections one after the other: “Suppressed it with a painkiller because I didn’t want to cancel the show unnecessarily.” She also ate little. She “realized very shortly that this was about to go wrong and that I could faint in front of the camera. I suddenly felt that I was incredibly tired and that the sentences were slipping away from me.”
Short hospital stay
The day after Gause’s attack of weakness, Wulf Schmiese (56), head of the ZDF news magazine, had already given the all-clear. A medical examination revealed that there was “no serious cause for the sudden dizziness”. can be read on the station’s homepage.
An email that Gause sent to her colleagues at ZDF at 1:01 a.m. was also quoted. “All clear. I’m back home. Anything more serious can be ruled out,” she let everyone know. She had previously been checked out at a hospital. The Berlin native said about the diagnosis: “It was probably an orthostatic collapse.” She went on to explain to her team the reason for her weakness: “Nausea, headache, dizziness – not eating enough, drinking too little… and I thought I could do it.”