He did The Pines of Rome too that night. We were in the second parterre box at stage level, so we were maybe 25 yards away from him. At some point, I think it was during “Pines”, he began to wobble backward and one of the cellists in the second row quickly jumped up and ran off stage. About ten seconds after that, he took a header off the podium, but some nimble second violinists caught him before he hit the floor. They gently placed him in a sitting position with his feet dangling off the edge of the podium. He took a few seconds, then raised his baton and took off from there finishing the concert. At the end he was helped off the stage and did not return. At no point during any of this did the orchestra stop or even miss a note.
Sure seems as though members of the orchestra knew he was in a fragile state and were looking for possible trouble - the finales of both Pines and Amore have got to be strenuous for a conductor even in good condition - I can’t imagine him carrying it off just after having passed out with his head probably still in a woozy state, and the orchestra making good sense of it all - years ago I heard the National Symphony make hash out of the last few bars of Amore under the direction of someone supposedly in his right mind (but whose name I mercifully forget); apparently it isn’t hard to do - the obituary quotes de Burgos as having said “I will keep going until I drop” - he really meant it....