Journalist Katie Couric is describing what she called a frightening medical incident that happened on June 27, leaving her temporarily unable to remember basic facts such as the year or who the president was.

In a detailed Substack post titled “The Day I’ll Never Remember,” Couric wrote that she believed it was 2024 and that Joe Biden was still president when the episode struck.

The event occurred while she was participating in the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado, where she appeared on two panels about artificial intelligence and journalism. She later said she could not recall any part of either event.

“I have no idea what we talked about, or of what occurred when the panels ended,” she explained.

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Her husband, John Molner, who attended both panels, shared his own perspective of what happened. According to him, someone alerted him that Couric appeared unwell. When he reached her, emergency medical workers and a doctor were already assisting her.

“I could tell something was off,” he wrote, adding that it might have been altitude sickness but that she “was definitely not all there.”

At the hospital, doctors evaluated Couric for a possible stroke after noticing she was struggling to identify the correct year, the name of the president, and even the names of her grandchildren.

An MRI revealed no evidence of stroke. That finding brought relief to both Couric and her family, though Molner noted that the experience made her mental “fog” far more noticeable.

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“She repeatedly asked me the same questions: ‘What was I doing before we got to the hospital?’ ‘Why am I at the hospital?’” he said.

Doctors ultimately diagnosed Couric with transient global amnesia, or TGA — a rare and temporary condition characterized by sudden memory loss that blocks the formation of new memories and can erase some recent ones.

Molner described it as “a very weird neural episode that’s pretty uncommon and, at least in most cases, is a ‘one and done’ experience.”

By around 9 p.m., Couric said she began feeling more like herself and eventually went to sleep at 2 a.m.

Because TGA creates a permanent gap in a person’s short-term memory, she explained that everything from about noon until at least 7 p.m. that day would remain a “big, black hole.”

Medical data she cited shows that roughly three to eight people per 100,000 experience TGA, with higher risk among those aged 50 and older. Researchers have not pinpointed its exact cause, though some theories link it to temporary disruptions in the brain’s hippocampus — the area involved in forming new memories.

Couric wrote that doctors believe brief interruptions in blood or oxygen flow or tiny spasms in blood vessels might play a role. Episodes can reportedly be triggered by factors such as intense exercise, emotional distress, major changes in temperature, or migraines. Roughly 15 percent of patients will experience another incident within ten years.

“Why did this happen to me? Was the altitude an issue? Was I dehydrated? Tired? Stressed?” she wondered in her post, adding that research so far does not show clear evidence connecting those conditions to the disorder.

Reflecting on the experience, Couric emphasized how grateful she felt that her condition was not more serious. “All I know is that those hours will be forever lost. Someone described it as my brain failing to hit the ‘record button.’”

“While this was a freaky occurrence, it could have been much more serious. So ultimately, I’m relieved — even though several hours of a Saturday in June will always be missing for me,” she concluded.

Medical experts continue to urge anyone who experiences sudden memory loss or stroke-like symptoms such as confusion, vision changes, or severe headache to seek immediate emergency care.