Talk-Show Host Has to Make the Call to Tell Lewis’ Wife of His Collapse

For sports radio host Jimmy Myers, one of the toughest calls he’s ever had to make came when he phoned Reggie Lewis’ wife to tell her about her husband’s collapse.

Myers, an announcer for a call-in show on WEEI radio in Boston and a close friend of the Lewis family, called Donna Lewis on Tuesday evening with the news that her husband was in trouble.

He was leaving a message on the answering machine when Mrs. Lewis picked up the phone and excitedly began to share news of her own--that she was pregnant with the couple’s second child.

“ ‘I’m going to be a mommy,’ ” Myers quoted Mrs. Lewis as saying.

“She was chatting and I was saying to myself, ‘I can handle telling you. I have to do it,’ ” Myers said.

After hearing the news, Mrs. Lewis rushed to Waltham-Weston Hospital, where her husband was pronounced dead.