Sanders Had Heart Attack, Doctors Say as He Leaves Hospital

(CN) – Two days after reporting surgery for a clogged artery, Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign has confirmed that the resilient Vermonter had been released from the hospital. Doctors confirmed Friday that he is recovering from a heart attack.

Sanders’ campaign previously disclosed the senator had two stents inserted in his artery.

In a fundraising email from his hospital, Sanders addressed the news on Thursday in typical Bernie style: “I’m feeling good – but we need Medicare for All.”

Upon his discharge, Sanders took care to address a variety of workers inside Nevada’s Desert Springs Hospital Medical Center – doctors, nurses, and other staff – in a statement thanking them for the “excellent care that they provided.”

“After two and a half days in the hospital, I feel great, and after taking a short time off, I look forward to getting back to work,” Sanders wrote.

Treating physicians Arturo Marchand and Arjun Gururaj diagnosed Sanders with a “myocardial infarction” – in layman’s terms, a heart attack.

“The senator was stable upon arrival and taken immediately to the cardiac catheterization laboratory, at which time two stents were placed in a blocked coronary artery in a timely fashion,” the doctors wrote. “All other arteries were normal.”

Reporting “good expected progress,” they disclosed that he has been instructed to follow up with his personal physician.

The 78-year-old Sanders has maintained a grueling schedule on the campaign trail that included a college tour in Los Angeles; a rally authorizing a teachers’ strike in Chicago; and General Motors’ union employees’ picket line in Detroit.

In Nevada, where he was hospitalized, he held a Medicare for All town hall and Presidential Gun Safety Forum event.

The senator’s medical situation cast a shadow over a strong fundraising quarter where his $25.3 million haul, with an $18 average donation, narrowly edged out his nearest competitor, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Warren pulled in $24.6 million, with an average $26 donation.

Their more moderate opponents lagged far behind for the third quarter of 2019.

As the oldest candidate in the race, Sanders edges out 76-year-old former Vice President Joe Biden by two years, but his first tweet out of the hospital shows the Vermont senator striking a characteristically aggressive pose: one fist in the air, with his wife Jane Sanders smiling behind him.

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