Six days after his admission to The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore after suffering what a doctor now describes as “a small hemorrhagic stroke,” Connecticut senator Chris Murphy (D) says he’s been released and moved to a rehabilitation facility.
In this statement released Friday afternoon, Murphy said he’ll miss another “several weeks” of votes at the U.S. Senate:
Thank you for the outpouring of support my family and I have received over the last few days. I want to be direct with you, so here is my diagnosis. Last Saturday afternoon, I felt something was not right with my body and called 9-1-1 out of an abundance of caution, and I’m glad I did. I was diagnosed with a small bleed in the thalamus region of my brain.
The doctors are very encouraged by the progress I’ve made so far. In order to take my recovery seriously and get back to work on the quickest timeline possible, I will be spending several weeks at a rehabilitation center after being discharged from the hospital today.
This has been a scary experience for me and my family, and I appreciate the continued respect for our privacy. As I'm working towards a full recovery, I am staying engaged with my team and colleagues remotely, and my staff continues to carry out our legislative priorities, serve constituents, and ensure the work of my office continues uninterrupted. I want to extend my deepest thanks to the excellent doctors and staff at Johns Hopkins who have treated me and cared for my family.
“Senator Murphy experienced a small hemorrhagic stroke,” said Dr. Jose Suarez, chief of neurosciences critical care at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. “He has shown tremendous progress, and at the current rate of improvement, we expect that he will make a full recovery following rehabilitation.”
The senator’s office says that Murphy experienced numbness in his arm while attending his son’s hockey game last Saturday and was hospitalized after calling 9-1-1.
A leading national critic of the Trump administration on foreign policy and other matters, Murphy is serving his third term in the Senate, which expires in 2031.
After traveling nationally to campaign with Democratic Senate candidates, Murphy was a notable absence this week as his party celebrated dramatic wins that will give Democrats control of the chamber starting in January.
