Savannah Guthrie Missing From ‘Today’ Show as She Undergoes Eye Surgery

Savannah Guthrie was absent from the Today show Wednesday as she underwent retinal detachment surgery for an eye injury she suffered last month. During the NBC morning show on Wednesday, Guthrie’s co-hosts, Hoda Kotb and Craig Melvin, revealed that the anchor was taking time off as she underwent eye surgery after she suffered from a form of retinal detachment when her son accidentally hit her in the eye with a toy train.

“I’m sure some folks are waking up and going, ‘Where is Savannah this morning?’” Kotb began the show.

“Our dear friend miss Guthrie has the day off, she’s actually having some eye surgery,” Melvin explained.

“She’d had some laser treatments, so now she’s actually going through the surgery,” Kotb continued. “And she’s gonna keep us posted, so we wish for her a very speedy recovery.”

Guthrie and her doctor’s had initially been hoping to avoid surgery, with Guthrie having previously explained that her doctors were “essentially trying to weld back this tear in the retina very carefully, and really trying hard to avoid the retina detaching and avoid having to do a major surgery.”

Speaking on the Today show on Dec. 3, Guthrie had revealed that her vision was improving, though she was still having difficulty.

“The vision is getting better every day, but I’m still blurry,” she said. “Right now it’s like having one contact (lens) in and (one) out. When it first started though, it was like a complete blur. I couldn’t have seen anything.”

After being absent from Today for two days, Guthrie revealed on Nov. 27 that she had undergone an emergency procedure after she temporarily lost vision in her right eye when her 2-year-old son Charley accidentally hit her with the pointy end of a toy train.

“Charley threw a toy train right at my eye and it tore my retina,” Guthrie explained while calling into the show. “It happened last week actually, and then I lost my vision in my right eye about 24 hours later, and then it turned out to be kind of serious. They were afraid my retina was detached, so they told me to just take it easy.”

“I really did lose my vision in my right eye,” she continued. “It was so blurry from — not to get too gross — but there was so much blood in my eye that it completely blocked my vision.”

Despite the injury and her impaired vision, she was still present at the 93rd annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

It is unclear when Guthrie will return to the Today show.