Reporter Erika Erickson announces departure from Fox 2

After eight years as an on-air reporter for WJBK-TV (Fox 2), Erika Erickson has parted ways with the station and has taken a job as director of communications with the Wayne County Sheriff's Office.

Erickson, who has been off-air most of the year due to medical issues, announced her move on social media Monday.

"I am now getting back to work! It is just somewhere else," Erickson wrote in a post that was shared on her social media channels. "I'm deeply saddened to say goodbye to Fox 2 and my friends who are much more like family there, all of you who tuned in... and especially those of you who let me tell your stories." 

Erickson, 37, had been a reporter at Fox 2 since 2013. The Canton Township native and Wayne State grad was hired at the Fox affiliate after working in Traverse City for three years.

"Although this is not how I wanted to say goodbye to Fox 2, I know I will still see my Fox 2 family and I know this is what is best for me right now," Erickson wrote. 

"As Huel Perkins would say, 'Stay Tuned...'" 

In September, Erickson publicly announced she suffered from cervicogenic headaches, a common and recurrent form of a headache that starts in the neck and causes unilateral pain.

She underwent a surgical procedure in August "to sear off angry nerves" in the left side of her neck, she said; it was her second such procedure, the earlier dealing with the right side of her neck. She detailed bouts of nausea, dizziness and vertigo, and said she was unable to fully turn her neck from side to side.

Erickson said the physical demands of her TV job — working out of a truck, hunching over editing bays, reporting in unpredictable weather — was too physically demanding  to continue in the field.

"My body was screaming at me for so long and I didn't listen," she said. "Now I am." 

agraham@detroitnews.com

@grahamorama