Megyn Kelly Says Son Thatcher Is 'OK' After Serious Medical Scare from Falling on Family Ski Trip

John Medina/Getty Megyn Kelly

Megyn Kelly opened up about why she missed some episodes of The Megyn Kelly Show earlier this month.

The journalist, 51, said on the Monday installment of her podcast that her son Thatcher, 8, injured his spleen while their family was on a ski trip in Montana.

"Thank God he's OK" she began. "He's a good skier. He's been skiing since he was really little. He was on an advanced run and did the run just fine, skied it just fine, but was inspired by this cave-like structure that was on the run — to check it out."

Noting that Thatcher's instructor was with him, Kelly said that skiers often "hike up" to reach the cave to "take a break on this run."

"And he did that," she said of Thatcher. "He didn't have his skis on; he had on his ski boots. Again he's only 8. It was the end of the day, and he was tired, and apparently he didn't have the strength to make the climb that's necessary to get into this little cave, and he fell."

She recalled, "I get a call from [husband] Doug [Brunt] saying, 'Thatcher's hurt. He's fine. He's fine. But he's hurt, and he has to go to the hospital to get checked out.' "

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Kelly said she was headed to get a massage but rushed to Thatcher after speaking to her husband. Once inside the ambulance, Thatcher told her that he fell 10 feet "and landed on some rocks."

She said at the hospital doctors performed a CT scan, which showed internal bleeding and three tears in his spleen. Thatcher was then transferred to "a more serious" hospital, where he was placed in the ICU. Kelly was told his spleen would have to be removed if the bleeding didn't stop.

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Kelly admitted that at the time she "wasn't that worried," but after speaking with other physicians back home, they urged her to not let Thatcher's spleen be removed.

"As a parent, what do you do?" Kelly said on her SiriusXM show. "What do you do? Because the bleeding is not stopping. We don't want him to lose the spleen. If there's any way of repairing it, we'd like to do that, but it's not safe to move him."

She said she could feel "the water start to rise" as Thatcher's condition grew worse. "As the news kept coming in that the bleeding was ongoing, and I'm talking to Doug, and we're trying to figure out what to do, there's not a clear course. There's not a clear, right course."

Kelly, who also shares 13-year-old son Edward Yates and 10-year-old daughter Yardley Evans with Brunt, said that she managed to tap into her strength as a mom. "I sat down and took a couple of deep breaths, and I just reminded myself that I had to be the parent. That he was depending on me and Doug, and we had to make a decision, and this was no time to lose this natural skill that has served me so well. And I was fine."

However, during Thatcher's third day in the hospital, his blood pressure declined while his heart rate and pulse "was rising," Kelly said.

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"The doctor said we might have to send him back in for another CT scan to see if the bleeding has stopped," she added. "He was in pain. We really didn't want to do it. It's a lot of radiation … And so the doctor said, 'Let's wait a bit before we do that, and then we'll see,' and thankfully things took a turn for the better then. And we managed to make it through the five days. The kid did not leave that bed for five days."

She said the gravity of the experience didn't fully "hit" her until she and her family finally left the hospital.

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Becoming emotional, Kelly added, "I'm feeling it now. The amount of stress and the love that you have for your children, and the fragility of these little bodies who totally depend on you. And the enormous responsibility you have for their well-being, for making huge decisions. And the importance of family and friends and good colleagues."

Kelly said, "I had Doug — I don't know what people who are single parenting do. God bless you. God bless you. It must be so hard."