Milwaukee Radio: Talk Host Suffers Stroke While On Air

Mark Belling

Longtime radio talker Mark Belling told his listeners on WISN 1130 AM Monday afternoon that he had a stroke while at the station during his show Feb. 11, reports jsonline.com.

In a broadcast posted online Monday night, Belling said he was doing his program when, during an extended commercial break, "I had this weird sensation going on. It just all of a sudden came on, there was no warning. … It was not excruciating, it was not debilitating. Your head's crumbling inside."

After about a half-hour, Belling told listeners, he called his doctor's office and was urged to get himself to the nearest hospital.

"What was happening was I was having a stroke. Which makes what I did next all the more idiotic — I drove over there," he said.

Belling spent a couple of days in the hospital before being released Feb. 13.

Apart from telling iHeartMedia WISN program director Jerry Bott and another member of the station, Belling said he was breaking the news on his health on his show.

The only effects of the stroke, he said, have been loss of peripheral vision on his right side — no driving — and trouble "resolving the two eyes for my vision — makes it hard for me to read."

In an email Monday night, Belling said "I feel fine," and added that he might do some one-hour segments of the show before coming back permanently — "but nothing is set in stone."

On the air Monday, Belling pointed out that he was supposed to be off the air anyway — not in rehab, but on the 2019 edition of his annual cruise, which runs Feb. 15-March 2 in Australia and New Zealand.

Belling noted that, if the stroke had happened en route to the cruise, “I’d be dead.”