US Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has been hospitalized after falling in a hotel
U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell tripped and fell at a hotel on Wednesday and was hospitalized, a spokesman for the senator said.
McConnell, 81, was attending a private dinner at a local hotel when he tripped. He was admitted to a hospital for treatment, spokesman Doug Andres said.
In 2019, the Senate Minority Leader from Kentucky, a childhood polio survivor, tripped and fell at his home in Kentucky, suffering a fractured shoulder. He then underwent surgery to repair the fracture in his shoulder.
The Senate had just entered summer recess, and he worked from home for a few weeks while he recovered. The taciturn McConnell is often reluctant to talk about his private life.
Survivor of childhood polio
But at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, he opened up about his early childhood experiences battling polio. He described how his mother insisted that he stay upright as a toddler and worked with him on a determined physical therapy regimen. He has acknowledged that he has some difficulty climbing stairs in adulthood.
First elected in 1984, McConnell became the longest-serving Senate leader in January when the new Congress convened, breaking the previous record of 16 years.
The Senate, where the average age is 65, has recently been without a few members due to illness. The office of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., 90, said she was hospitalized last week to be treated for shingles.
Senator John Fetterman, D-Pa., 53, who suffered a stroke last year while campaigning, was expected to be out for several weeks as he was being cared for for clinical depression.
.