Hannah Storm returns to TV after burn accident; during recovery she only left house for Mass

ABC News has details of her return:

Just three weeks after suffering serious burns in an accident at home, ESPN anchor Hannah Storm returned to television to host the 124th Rose Parade in Pasadena, Calif. on New Years’ Day.

Storm, who has been an anchor of ESPN’s “SportsCenter” since 2008, shared hosting duties for the parade with “Good Morning America” anchor Josh Elliott. He opened the broadcast by welcoming her back on the air.

“The best medicine is being here with you, my friend, for the fifth year in a row,” Storm said to Elliott.

Storm thanked the staff of the Trauma and Burn Center at New York’s Westchester Medical Center for helping her recover.

She lost her eyebrows, eyelashes, and roughly half of her hair while she was making dinner for her family outside on the gas grill at her Connecticut home on Dec. 11.

When Storm realized the flame on the grill had gone out, she turned the gas off, and then on again. As she did, “There was an explosion and a wall of fire came at me,”Storm told the Associated Press.

Storm suffered first-degree burns to her face and neck, as well as second-degree burns on her chest and hands.

And FOX has more:

“I didn’t see my face until the next day and you wonder how it’s going to look,” she said. “I was pretty shocked. But my overarching thought was I’ve covered events with military members who have been through a lot worse than me, and they’ve come through. I kept thinking, `I can do this. I’m fortunate.”‘

Other than going to Christmas Eve Mass, Storm hadn’t been outside until her trip to California. ESPN reworked its anchor schedule while she was recovering, and NBC and the Golf Channel rearranged their staffing while [NBC Sports anchor Dan] Hicks attended to his wife.

Storm’s official biography notes:

A graduate of the University of Notre Dame with degrees in communications and political science, Storm began her career while still in school, working at WNDU-TV, the Notre Dame-owned NBC affiliate in South Bend, Indiana. After graduation, she took a job as a disc jockey at KNCN-FM in Corpus Christi, Texas. Six months later, she landed at Houston’s KSRR-FM as their drive-time sport anchor.