Hal Jay, a Texas Radio Hall of Fame personality who has been with WBAP 820 AM for 42 years, will be back on the air starting Monday morning, according to The Dallas Morning News.
Jay, 69, has been off the air since Jan. 10 when he collapsed at home from an irregular heart rhythm or ventricular tachycardia. He suffered another incident at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas on Jan. 24 and was put on a heart transplant list.
Hal stayed in the intensive care unit, expecting a long wait for a heart. Within 10 days, he said, he got the call. Early Feb. 3, Jay underwent heart transplant surgery. Nine days later, he was back at home, recovering. On Saturday, he drove for the first time since October.
“It’s amazing what doctors can do. It’s amazing what God can do,” Jay said Thursday. “I’m doing a lot of my own and taking a lot of pressure off my wife, Ann [Harbuck], who has been my caregiver.”
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| Jay while awaiting a new heart |
What’s the first thing he’ll tell his listeners Monday?
“It’s going to be: ‘As I was saying ...’ It’s an old joke. I think it was a David Letterman line,” Jay said.
Jay was preparing to record an American Heart Association public-service announcement on Thursday. He said the message will be heartfelt.“I know that exercise and just walking is amazing,” he said. “The day after I had the transplant, I had two or three nurses with me in rehab and there were all kinds of monitors, and you could see what walking can do for the heart — even if it’s 20 to 30 minutes. It doesn’t have to be five miles.”
Jay, a Fort Worth native, started his broadcast career as a teenager in Liberal, Kan. He worked at Fort Worth and Memphis stations before joining WBAP in 1981. His laugh has been called “the most recognizable laugh in the Metroplex,” according to his bio.
On Monday, listeners should hear that laugh again.
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