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| On May 8, 2008, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, listens to a hearing on breast cancer in Washington, D.C. |
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Sen. Ted Kennedy collapses at inaugural lunch
CNN
January 19, 2009
Area: Washington, DC (Hagerstown)
WASHINGTON - Senator Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, collapsed Tuesday afternoon during a luncheon for President Barack Obama in the Capitol's Statuary Hall.
Paramedics were called to the scene at 2:35 p.m. ET.
Kennedy, who appeared to be suffering from a seizure, was transported to a hospital.
"Sen. Kennedy had a seizure" which "lasted a while," a Republican House member told CNN.
The member said Kennedy was still experiencing seizures when he was put in a wheelchair and taken out through the Rayburn room, located to the side of Statuary Hall.
Kennedy, 76, was first elected to the Senate in 1962.
The source did not know whether President Obama saw it happening because "there was still a lot of talking" and the program was still going on; the incident happened at the end of lunch.
This source was sitting at table in front of Kennedy and said Kennedy was sitting with former Vice President Walter Mondale and Sen. Daniel Inouye.
Kennedy suffered a seizure in May 2008, while walking his dogs at his home in Hyannisport, Massachusetts.
Three days later, Kennedy's doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said the preliminary results from a brain biopsy showed a tumor in the left parietal lobe, which was responsible for the seizure. See a closer look at Kennedy. �
In June 2008, Kennedy underwent a 3�-hour operation at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, to remove a malignant tumor from his brain. Surgeons had reported that the surgery was a success and that Kennedy should suffer no permanent damage from the procedure.
Kennedy's follow-up treatment plan was to include radiation and chemotherapy.
The senior Massachusetts senator, patriarch of one of the leading families of American politics, is a staunch supporter of Obama.
Kennedy is the brother of President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in Dallas in 1963, and New York Sen. Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated while seeking the White House in 1968.
Though his own attempt to seek the presidency failed, Kennedy has built a reputation as one of the most effective lawmakers in the Senate.
Kennedy had surgery in October 2007 to clear his carotid artery in hopes of preventing a stroke. Until the seizure in 2008, the powerful Democrat appeared in fine health. He suffers chronic back pain from injuries suffered in a 1964 plane crash.
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