TV Host’s Condition Upgraded
Television game show host Ray Combs was able to move his toes and flex his hands Wednesday, two days after he was temporarily paralyzed in a traffic collision on the Ventura Freeway, his agent reported.
Combs, 38, host of “The New Family Feud” for six years, suffered a swollen spinal disk in the accident, which doctors believed caused the paralysis, said Irv Schwartz, Comb’s agent.
His condition was upgraded from serious to fair at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Burbank, Schwartz said.
Combs was expected to be transferred from the intensive care ward to a rehabilitation unit to begin physical therapy, Schwartz said.
“Ray is doing much better today,” Schwartz said in a prepared statement issued Wednesday. “The hospital physicians have said that the prognosis is very good.”
Combs was driving west on the Ventura Freeway Monday afternoon when his car was sideswiped by a speeding vehicle, and then rear-ended by another vehicle, his agent said.
Bill Mayfield, a motorcycle officer with the Los Angeles Police Department’s Valley Traffic Division, said he administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to revive Combs at the scene of the accident.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
