{"id":302148,"date":"2026-02-25T23:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T23:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/302148\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T23:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T23:15:08","slug":"chad-townsend-suffers-health-scare-on-flight-to-las-vegas-for-nrl-season-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/302148\/","title":{"rendered":"Chad Townsend suffers health scare on flight to Las Vegas for NRL season-opener"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"XwsInylahQtJnSbA\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cI got up to go to the toilet and next minute I woke up and I was on the floor with an oxygen mask on my face. I was confused as I didn\u2019t know what had happened and I was getting some oxygen, and my blood pressure was through the roof.<\/p>\n<p class=\"XwsInylahQtJnSbA\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThe only thing we can put it down to is just the altitude and some dehydration on the aircraft. So yeah, quite scary for myself, but look, I\u2019m safe.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"XwsInylahQtJnSbA\" style=\"display:none\">Townsend said he was fortunate there was a doctor on the flight and a nurse, who is the wife of Newcastle Knights great Kurt Gidley.<\/p>\n<p class=\"XwsInylahQtJnSbA\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cIt was a bit scary, to be honest,\u201d Townsend said.<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"Chad Townsend. Photo \/ Getty Images\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>Chad Townsend. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n<p class=\"XwsInylahQtJnSbA\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cAs we started to descend into LA, my blood pressure sort of started to come back to normal and then as we landed, they got the paramedics to come on board and help me off the plane.<\/p>\n<p class=\"XwsInylahQtJnSbA\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cI walked off the plane on my own accord and then got off and then did all my blood pressure and got it all tested again and I was back to normal once I was on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"XwsInylahQtJnSbA\" style=\"display:none\">Townsend played 268 games across his career at four different clubs, with the highlight being winning the 2016 NRL premiership with the Cronulla Sharks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"XwsInylahQtJnSbA\" style=\"display:none\">He played 41 games for the Warriors in 2014-15, then returned for a further five matches in 2021 when the Warriors were based in Australia for the entire season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"XwsInylahQtJnSbA\" style=\"display:none\">Townsend retired at the end of the 2025 season, and has turned his attention to podcasting among other things.<\/p>\n<p class=\"XwsInylahQtJnSbA\" style=\"display:none\">This is the third year the NRL season has begun the season in Sin City as part of a push to grow the game globally. Last year, the Warriors played in Las Vegas, but it was a moment to forget, as they were hammered 30-8 by the Canberra Raiders.<\/p>\n<p class=\"XwsInylahQtJnSbA\" style=\"display:none\">The Knights face the North Queensland Cowboys in the season-opener at Allegiant Stadium, followed by the Canterbury Bulldogs squaring off with the St George Illawarra Dragons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI got up to go to the toilet and next minute I woke up and I was on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[74,3017,55795,27253,82447,69064,70,2082,2740,134,42910,1073,111,139,577,69,90,20248,29374,6661,6926,72233,1072,213,9939,6378,23371,61,165728,19054,9938,20249,3006,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-302148","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-after","9":"tag-ahead","10":"tag-chad","11":"tag-endured","12":"tag-fainting","13":"tag-fiveeighth","14":"tag-flight","15":"tag-for","16":"tag-former","17":"tag-health","18":"tag-las","19":"tag-media","20":"tag-new-zealand","21":"tag-newzealand","22":"tag-nrl","23":"tag-nz","24":"tag-on","25":"tag-opener","26":"tag-personality","27":"tag-scare","28":"tag-season","29":"tag-seasonopener","30":"tag-social","31":"tag-sports","32":"tag-states","33":"tag-suffers","34":"tag-sundays","35":"tag-to","36":"tag-townsend","37":"tag-turned","38":"tag-united","39":"tag-vegas","40":"tag-warriors","41":"tag-zealand"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}