Bernie Sanders Leaves Hospital, Returns to Vermont Following Heart Attack

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders headed
home to Burlington, VT, on Saturday to recover from a heart attack he experienced
earlier in the week while on the campaign trail.

Sanders, 78, was released from a Las Vegas, NV, hospital on
Friday and departed the city the next day. He had been campaigning in Nevada
when he experienced chest pains on Tuesday night, and was later taken to the
hospital.

Initially, the senator’s campaign had said only that he
had received two stents in a blocked artery after feeling “some chest
discomfort.” However, Sanders’ doctors released an additional statement through
the campaign on Friday acknowledging that Sanders “was diagnosed with a
myocardial infarction,” a fancy way of saying 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
statement from Sanders’ doctors said, according to NBC News. “All other
arteries were normal.”

Upon his release early Friday evening from Desert Springs
Hospital Medical Center, Sanders walked out of the hospital and raised his fist
for the cameras. He thanked the hospital staff and said he felt “great.”

Later, Sanders posted a video on social media thanking his supporters
for the “love and warm wishes,” and promising to return to the campaign trail
soon, although he did not specify a date.

“Hello, everybody,” Sanders said. “We are in Las Vegas, I
just got out of the hospital a few hours ago, and I’m feeling so much better.”

NBC said Sanders would be off the 2020 campaign trail “for
the next several days,” but is expected to participate in the Oct.
15 Democratic presidential debate.

While Sanders seems to be in good spirits and on the mend,
the events
leading up to his three-night stay in the hospital sound pretty
frightening.

Per The New York Times:

Mr. Sanders began experiencing chest discomfort on Tuesday
evening during a grass-roots fund-raiser he was hosting at a Las Vegas
restaurant. As he began taking questions from the audience, he asked a campaign
aide for a chair. He did not stay much longer at the event, and became visibly
uncomfortable in a car afterward, according to two campaign officials, who
spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic.

At that point, Mr. Sanders was taken to an urgent care
facility, where doctors determined that he should be transferred to a hospital.
He was then taken by ambulance to Desert Springs Hospital Medical Center.

At the hospital, he was taken immediately to the cardiac
catheterization laboratory, where doctors inserted two stents into a blocked
artery. By Wednesday, he was talking to his campaign manager, Faiz Shakir,
about the campaign. By Thursday, he was walking laps around the
hospital hallway, the officials said.

Scary.

That unfortunate turn of events followed some positive news earlier this week when it was announced the Sanders campaign had raised an impressive $25.3 million in the third quarter of this year, up from $18 million in each of the previous two quarters. The average donation was just over $18, according to the campaign.