Chris Egert was sounding pretty upbeat for someone who just had his foot amputated.
"This is not an end of the world type thing. It's a new beginning," said the morning news anchor for KSTP 5 Eyewitness News.
Three days before, Egert had an operation at Hennepin County Medical Center that amputated the lower part of his left leg about six inches below the knee.
The surgery was what Egert described as "the best of all bad options" to deal with a problematic ankle that had been plaguing the 43-year-old Egert most of his life with pain, infection and mobility problems.
"This was going to be the best chance for me to get some kind of mobility back and some kind of my former life back," he said.
Egert's decision to go ahead with the amputation comes less than three months after another Twin Cities television journalist had to have the lower part of her leg amputated. Fox 9 news reporter Courtney Godfrey lost her left foot after she was thrown off a boat on Sept. 15, and her foot was caught in the boat's propeller.
The same doctor operated on both Godfrey and Egert.
"Kind of a small world," said Egert.