“News never stops” is a phrase often used in the journalism world.
And it’s a phrase Tori Yorgey, a TV reporter for NBC affiliate WSAZ of Huntington, West Virginia, took to heart when she was suddenly struck by a car during a live shot, fell and bounced right back up to finish her report.
The incident unfolded Wednesday evening as Yorgey was reporting at the scene of a water main break in Dunbar.
In the clip, she is facing the camera when a car comes up from behind and strikes her in the back.
Yorgey lurches forward shocked saying, “Oh my God. I just got by a car, but I’m okay!” and her camera topples to the ground.
“You know that’s live TV for ya!” she says with a laugh. “It’s all good! I actually got hit by a car in college too just like that. I am so glad I’m okay!”
Yorgey fixes the camera and lights and gracefully rebounds to finish her report on the water break.
In the clip the driver who hit her is heard apologizing and Yorgey replied, “Ma’am, you’re so sweet, and you are okay.”
Yorgey said to her co-host in the studio Tim Irr, “That woman was so nice though. She didn’t mean to. It was an accident and I know it was.”
Seamlessly she transitioned back to her report saying, “Again Tim, we’ll get back to the report. We’re on Roxalana Hills Drive in Dunbar, this is where that water break is.”
Yorgey, a 25-year-old originally from Pennsylvania, told NBC News Thursday that she’s feeling fine after the incident, except for a little soreness in her back and right leg.
“I got checked out, no broken bones. They said I’ll be sore for a little.”
She said the incident unfolded so quickly, she “blacked out” on falling and getting back up.
“I was standing there looking at the camera and as I’m literally about to speak, I just feel like a big old hit in my back and I just saw the car,” she said.
“I thought I was going under the wheel,” she recalled. “I thought I was getting run over in that moment. It was really, really scary.”
Yorgey noted she doesn’t remember falling and getting back up.
“That’s always my first instinct, just get back up if I can,” she said.
Yorgey said she immediately reassured the driver that hit her that she was alright, noting that the driver, as well as water workers in the area where she was shooting checked in on her.
“I saw her face, the woman that was driving the car, she was mortified,” she said. “Accidents happen all the time. I felt really compelled to let her know, I am good.”
Yorgey said in her job she often is a “one-woman band” who reports on her own in the field, as she was Wednesday evening.
Even after the fall, Yorgey didn’t miss a beat and returned to reporting.
“I felt safe and that’s why I didn’t leave and I kept doing the live shot,” Yorgey said.
“I definitely love my job, I would not trade it for the world,” she added.