WASHINGTON (WDRB) -- Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell was hospitalized after he tripped and fell at a hotel in Washington where he attended a private dinner.
The Kentucky senator, 81, was at a dinner for the Senate Leadership Fund, a campaign committee aligned with him, when he tripped Wednesday evening. He was admitted to a hospital for treatment, spokesman Doug Andres said. The dinner was at the Waldorf Astoria Washington DC, formerly the Trump International Hotel.
A statement released Thursday by McConnell's communications director David Popp said, "Leader McConnell tripped at a dinner event Wednesday evening and has been admitted to the hospital and is being treated for a concussion. He is expected to remain in the hospital for a few days of observation and treatment. The Leader is grateful to the medical professionals for their care and to his colleagues for their warm wishes."
The No. 2 Republican, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, was at the dinner and told reporters that McConnell had delivered remarks "as usual."
"Evidently, it happened later in the evening," said Thune, who had moved on to another reception underway at the hotel and did not see McConnell trip and fall.
In 2019, the GOP leader tripped and fell at his home in Kentucky, suffering a shoulder fracture. At the time, he underwent surgery to repair the fracture in his shoulder. The Senate had just started a summer recess, and he worked from home for some weeks as he recovered.
First elected in 1984, McConnell in January became the longest-serving Senate leader when the new Congress convened, breaking the previous record of 16 years.
The taciturn McConnell is often reluctant to discuss his private life. But at the start of the COVID-19 crisis he opened up about his early childhood experience fighting polio. He described how his mother insisted that he stay off his feet as a toddler and worked with him through a determined physical therapy regime. He has acknowledged some difficulty in adulthood climbing stairs.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor Thursday morning that he had called McConnell and spoken with his staff "to extend my prayers and well wishes."
"I joined every single one of my colleagues in wishing Leader McConnell a speedy and full recovery," Schumer said.
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