Lt. Gov. John Feterman of Pennsylvania, the frontrunner for his Democratic nomination in his state’s Senate, said Sunday he had a stroke Friday and is recovering.
“I had a stroke caused by a clot in my heart that had been in the rhythm of A-fib for too long,” he said in a statement. “The amazing doctors here were able to quickly and completely remove the clot by reversing the stroke, they also kept my heart under control.
The incident tore him away from the election campaign last weekend before Tuesday’s primary election in one of the country’s most closely watched Senate competitions. It was unclear when he would return to the personal campaign.
“The good news is that I feel much better and the doctors tell me that I have not suffered any cognitive impairment,” he told Penn Medicine Lancaster General Hospital. “I’m on my way to a full recovery.”
“I’m being monitored here for now, but I have to get out of here soon,” he added.
Mr Feterman was due to host a meeting and meeting in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, on Friday morning, but his spokesman, Joe Calvelo, said at the time that the team had decided to cancel the event because “John is not feeling well this morning. so we take the necessary precautions. “
The campaign canceled events across the state on Friday night, Saturday morning and Sunday again, but provided scant information on Mr Feterman’s health over the weekend.
In the statement and the accompanying video, Mr Feterman said he felt unwell and that his wife, Gisele Barreto Feterman, had insisted that he go to the hospital for an examination.
The development disrupted his ability to personally engage voters during the busiest part of the race. However, he leads his main Democratic rival, Connor Lamb, with double-digit figures in scarce public opinion polls.
“I just found out on live television that Lieutenant-Governor Feterman had suffered a stroke,” Mr Lamb wrote on Twitter. Referring to his wife, he continued: “Haley and I keep John and his family in our prayers and wish him a full and speedy recovery.”
During the campaign, Mr Feterman’s outspoken liberal policies and his propensity to wear shorts and hoods to public events seemed to resonate with much of the democratic base.
“If someone thinks I’m smarter, if I’m wearing a suit, so be it,” Mr Feterman said in an interview Thursday at an event in York, his hometown, after giving an energetic speech and working in a crowded bar. “I prefer people to know what they get, and that’s me.”
Senator Ben Ray Luhan, a Democrat from New Mexico, suffered a stroke earlier this year and spoke of his difficult path to recovery. It was not immediately clear what Mr Fetherman’s rehabilitation process would look like.
“The doctors assured me that I would be able to return to the trail, but first I had to take a minute to rest and recover,” he said.
Add Comment