Andrew East, married to Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson, suffered a head injury, needing nine staples. (Photo: Getty Images)
New parents Shawn Johnson and Andrew East had a scare only three weeks after they brought home new daughter Drew.
The couple, who have shared the highs and lows of their pregnancy and now family life on their video blog, “The East Fam,” said Sunday that East was in his Nashville, Tennessee, home gym when he collapsed.
Mixed with video of Johnson holding the baby and East explaining he was tidying the gym in anticipation of his friends’ arrival, is dramatic footage of East lifting a 185-pound weight and falling backwards.
“As soon as I put the bar on the rack I went from being fully conscious to … (snaps his fingers and the screen goes black to the sound of heartbeats). Nothing,” he said with the video showing him prone on the floor. “And that began this one-hour period where I literally … I don’t remember anything.”
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The former Washington Redskins player said he’s never blacked out or lost memory. He said he was unconscious for “several minutes.” His friends arrived, “saw a puddle of blood” and took him to the emergency room
“I was asleep upstairs and unaware of any of this,” Johnson said.
East called her from the hospital at 6 a.m.
She called her parents to watch the baby and headed to the ER.
From bad to worse?
East, 28, got nine staples in his head from hitting the gym floor. But a nurse said a doctor would be in later to speak with him.
“I didn’t like how she said it,” Johnson said. “She told us it had something to do with the EKG. So, his heart; how his EKGs look irregular. They think it’s his heart that caused him to pass out.”
Doctors decided to keep him overnight for observation.
They eventually cleared East to come home after deciding what they saw in the EKG “was not as concerning as they initially thought,” East said.
‘I got little Drew’
“So I called Shawn and let her know I would be coming home,” East recalled, saying he heard his wife “cry and really sob like I hadn’t heard you sob before.”
“I was terrified,” said the 27-year-old former Olympic gymnast.
While still in the hospital, East said he wrestled with what it meant to be a father.
“It was the first time I had to realize that my life is not just my own now,” he said. “I got little Drew I need to be selfless for.”
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At home, East said that hearing his wife cry and watching the gym footage helped him to recognize that control is an illusion and that life can change fast.
“I realize that we have a daughter now who we are fully responsible for, who depends on us literally for her life,” he said. “I have a wife now who would be fine with out me.”
“Shut up,” Johnson chimed in.
“I think it has given me this perspective of gratitude and submission and what are my priorities and how can I honor those priorities?”
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