'Duck Dynasty' star Jep Robertson says of seizure: 'I thought I was a goner'

Television personality Jep Robertson of 'Duck Dynasty' arrives at the Miss USA 2013 pageant, Sunday, June 16, 2013, in Las Vegas. Credit: AP / Jeff Bottari
Jep Robertson, of the "Duck Dynasty" reality-show clan, spoke publicly for the first time Wednesday about the sudden seizure earlier this month that put him on a hospital ventilator for days.
"I thought I was a goner," Robertson, 36, told ABC's "Good Morning America," referring to his collapse in the Louisiana woods while deer hunting on Oct. 19. "I reached to get my bow and that's kinda the last I remember," he said. "Like, I just crumpled to the ground, and they said I had a seizure for, like, five minutes."
Fortuitously, his brother Willie Robertson was hunting nearby and quickly came to his aid -- though as Jep Robertson's wife, Jessica, told "GMA," "It took about an hour and a half to two hours before the ambulance got there."
"The time I remember is Thursday," Jep Robertson said, "waking up Thursday, looking around, [and] I asked Jess, I was, like, 'What are we doing in the hospital?' I had no idea what had happened four days before."
Doctors performed a spinal tap, an EEG and a CT scan, ABC said, and previous accounts reported that the father of four had to be sedated and restrained.
"They think it was a mix between meningitis and encephalitis," Jep Robertson said, adding that, "For the last month, I [had] mispronounced words. And I didn't know why I did it, but I think it was leading up to the seizure."
Told it would be "at least a month" before he could go hunting again, he said lightheartedly, "I'm mad about it."
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