Today Show’s Taylor Haynes has detailed the devastating fallout she has experienced after her hand was crushed by a crab during a live broadcast nearly two months ago.
The Nine weather star sat down with Stellar’s Something To Talk About podcast this week to reveal that she is currently undergoing rehabilitation to restore feeling in her finger after a live television cross at Sydney Fish Market went horribly wrong.
The 23-year-old presenter was taking viewers on a tour of the new and improved seafood destination in April when she did a piece to camera holding a giant crab, which unexpectedly grabbed her finger with its pincer and crushed it.
Now, Haynes has detailed what went wrong behind-the-scenes of the now-viral moment and the health battle she faces as a result.
“I have a thing called a neuroma,” she began, adding: “Because my finger was severely crushed by the crab, it has crushed all the nerves. I’ve lost feeling and sensation.”
She went on to reveal that she is doing rehab every week to get movement, feeling and muscle memory back into the finger.
“I’m seeing a hand surgeon next week to chat further on how we manage this, whether it will take six to 12 months, or we bite the [bullet] and get an operation to reconstruct the nerves.”
The TV star, while maintaining a calm exterior in the broadcast, was secretly panicking during the shock moment.
“I just screamed and said, ‘Please, I don’t want to lose a finger’. It still shakes me talking about it.”
According to Haynes, the animal handler could not free her hand from the pincer himself, so the cameraman stepped in and attempted to loosen its grip with large tongs.
“We were getting everything to try to separate those claws. My cameraman went running and found these big tongs that were 30cm long that you [use to] pull crabs out of the tank. That finally separated the crab from my finger,” Haynes said.
A few days after the on-air incident, Haynes revealed that justice was “served”, telling co-hosts Lizzie Pearl and Michael Atkinson that she had enacted her revenge by eating the crab that had taken a bite of her finger.
“Justice is being served this morning, Australia,” Haynes said from the Sydney Royal Easter Show.
“I’d like to introduce to you my breakfast, if not my revenge, do you recognise this bad boy in front of me? Because I definitely do.
“We are being reunited under very different circumstances this morning … it had a great crack at me the other day, so I thought I’d have the last fight.”
Haynes then went on to thank Today Show viewers for the support she received in the wake of the nasty on-air bite.