Meteorologist Lonnie Quinn Returns to Work After Traumatic Brain Injury: Inside His Recovery

Meteorologist Lonnie Quinn has returned to work after suffering a traumatic brain injury and taking some time off. Initially, doctors cleared him but it was later discovered that the injury was more severe than they had first thought.

Lonnie Quinn Took Time Off From Work After Suffering a Head Injury

The CBS personality first revealed his health issue during a March CBS News broadcast, explaining to viewers that he banged his head. “I took a good – I took a wallop on my head and we went to the hospital because the big concern in the medical community, they want to see if there’s a brain bleed because you can be dead in the morning if you don’t treat that,” he said.

Lonnie had a CT scan, which ended up being negative. Doctors then told him he was “free to go home.”

However, Lonnie said that the problem was that he began suffering some other symptoms once he returned to work. In particular, he recalled one 11:00 newscast where he started to walk out onto the set “and all of a sudden I couldn’t see out of my left eye.”

“There was no way I could go on. And just as quickly as it began, it went away. It lasted maybe 15 minutes,” he recalled.

Lonnie ended up doing the newscast that night and then afterwards, the news director told him to go to the hospital.

“That’s where they cleared the CT scan again but they said you need to follow up with a neurologist, and the neurologist did an MRI, and it just showed that it’s a severe situation,” he said.

Doctors told him the situation was not just going to go away on its own, which is why he needed to take time and rest. He was told that his brain would recover from the injury if he got enough sleep. Initially, his doctors advised him to only work half days and he promised that once he made a “full recovery” he would come back full time. He decided to step back from the show temporarily to heal.

Lonnie Quinn Returned to Work and Revealed Traumatic Brain Injury

Lonnie returned to work on May 5, 2025, after his two-month absence from CBS News. During the broadcast, a video was played showing the warm welcome that the weathercaster got when he came back to work. People in the newsroom cheered and greeted him with hugs. He said that the reaction took him “by surprise.” They also presented him with a cake. He talked more about the incident, revealing it was indeed a traumatic brain injury after all.

“It was a very major head injury. Once the MRI came back, and that’s when the doctors came in and said, ‘OK, well, this is actually a traumatic brain injury, not just a concussion. You’ve got to be out of work for six to eight weeks, and we just got to [stick to] rest and relaxation and get you back to it,'” he said.

After that emotional revelation, Lonnie jumped right into the weather forecast for the week ahead.

Amid his return to TV, CBS weatherman Robert Marciano shared a post on Instagram welcoming Lonnie back to work.

“Happy to share that Lonnie Quinn is back to work today @cbsnewyork and @cbseveningnews !!” Rob captioned a photo with his colleague. “This man is a good friend, a gifted weather pro, and all around great human. It’s been a fun privilege to fill-in for him the last few weeks as he heals and works thru concussion recovery. We are all so psyched to have him healthy and back in action!!”