Philly Radio: WIP Host Battles Bout of On-Air Hiccups

Big Dady Graham

Philly radio icon Big Daddy Graham has battled through a lot in recent years - major back surgery, throat cancer, a serious staph infection.

But this past week, according to philly.com, the longtime WIP 94.1 FM host and comedian was sidelined by the most unlikely of calamities – a case of the hiccups.

At midnight about a week ago, as Graham prepared for his 2 a.m. radio shift, the host was overcome by a sudden bout of hiccups. Graham went live anyway, attempting to drink as much water as he could during commercial breaks, but the intensity of the hiccuping just kept getting worse.

“I started getting bouts of three to four hiccups in a row,” Graham said. “It’s a hard thing to hide on the air.”

Graham eventually made it through his show and left Philadelphia on a prepaid New York City vacation, but had to cut the trip short when the hiccups returned. At one point, the host said he hiccuped for 41 hours straight before begrudgingly agreeing to get it checked.

He spent more than five hours in the emergency room of a New Jersey hospital he declined to name, thinking his hiccuping problem had finally been cured.

“Ten minutes after they released me, I started hiccuping again,” said Graham, who eventually ended up at Jefferson University Hospital, where his problem was diagnosed as atrial fibrillation, or AFib. To say the WIP host is used to receiving bad medical news is an understatement.



“I’ve had three back surgeries, three throat surgeries, throat cancer and a mini-heart attack over Labor Day weekend,” Graham said. “I’m a very bad eater with very bad hours, but that’s the price I pay for doing a job I don’t consider work.”

Despite the bad news and a three-day stay in the hospital, Graham couldn’t stop working. From his hospital bed, he came up with a comedy routine for fellow WIP host Josh Innes’ afternoon show.