Texas TV channel’s news director dies just before broadcast leaving crew ‘traumatised’

The director, described as 'kindhearted', had only just turned 27

A crew working for a local TV station in Texas were left "traumatised" after a director died suddenly on the job.

Malcolm Montgomery, who only turned 27 earlier this month, died while making last-minute preparations for morning show Daybreak on Amarillo's ABC-affiliated channel, KVII, on Tuesday (29 January). The station reported the news on its website.

The channel said that the director died “doing what he most loved – serving our viewers by putting together the best morning news show he could.”

Deadline reports that Steve Kersh, KVII's chief meteorologist, posted a video on Facebook explaining the channel's morning and midday news announcements had been cancelled

He said: “We had a lot of phone calls and email[s] asking why Daybreak wasn’t on this morning, and also why we didn’t have a midday show and that’s the reason why. As you can imagine, our crew is pretty traumatised by what happened here and our prayers are certainly with Malcolm’s family.”

Montgomery's co-workers called him a “calm voice in the stressful storm” with another of the station's meteorologist, Alyssa Pawlak, remembering him as "kindhearted".

His cause of death wasn't immediately released.