As we speak, someone is getting medical treatment at the inaugural indoors ceremony lunch thingie. Details will follow.
It is not the president or the vp or their immediate families. There are a lot of old people there, it could be almost anything.
UPDATE: It was Ted Kennedy, taken away on a stretcher. Hopefully a minor setback and nothing more.
Ambulances pulled up to the building, but have not pulled out yet. Perviously, Kennedy has been brought to the hospital a couple of times and has gotten past it pretty easily. He is fragile, clearly.
Kennedy was in a state of convulsions and was taken out in that state. Earlier, Senator Robert Byrd was having some kind of trouble eating, not too serious, was also taken away.
UPDATE: Kennedy was in a wheelchair at the time of the attack. Medical people came out and converted his (obviously very fancy) wheel chair into a stretcher (a transformer wheelchair) and, the Senator still convulsing, was pulled out of the room and brought to the building’s medical facility.
UPDATE: No, Nora of MSNBC had it wrong … Kennedy was not taken to the building’s medical facility. He was stuffed directly into the ambulance, he was conscious, and apparently in pain.
UPDATE: Obama jumped in to help, and Dodd and Kerry and others helped him out of the room to the ambulance. Dodd and Kerry can be seen in a clip that is being rolled now and then at the ambulance site.
UPDATE: There is a report that Kennedy had already started to “seem much better” as he was getting into the ambulance.
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The President has just announced that it’s Ted Kennedy
CNN’s little ticker thing says it was both Kennedy and Byrd, and they are reporting that now.
Blitzer is saying the hospital tells CNN that Senator Kennedy’s issue was simple fatigue and he should be OK
From the NY Times, Kennedy is fine. Minor seizure are common in brain cancer patients like him, he’s had some before, and it was probably brought on by fatigue. Byrd is fine (for a 91 year old). He was simply distressed at Kennedy’s seizure. I think they just took him home.
No, syncope needs to be seen in an emergency room setting as soon as possible. The ER staff needs to determine what caused the drop in BP and correct the BP if it has not corrected itself. The pt needs to be placed on a cardiac monitor and at least observed for a few hours. Labs also need to be drawn, and medications may need to be given.