WASHINGTON — Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut has been discharged from the hospital after suffering a stroke last weekend and will spend several weeks recovering at a rehabilitation center, his office announced Friday.
Murphy, a 53-year-old Democrat, will miss several weeks of Senate votes during his rehabilitation. Physicians at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, where he received treatment, reported that he is expected to make a complete recovery.
Diagnosis and Initial Treatment
Murphy experienced symptoms while attending his son’s hockey game last weekend. In a public statement, the senator said he felt that something was wrong with his body and dialed 911 out of caution. He was initially taken to a local hospital before being transferred to Johns Hopkins for monitoring and care.
His chief of staff, Allison Herwitt, said in an earlier statement that the medical incident began when Murphy noticed numbness developing in his arm.
“I was diagnosed with a small bleed in the thalamus region of my brain,” Murphy said Friday, describing the event as a frightening ordeal for his family. “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.”
Dr. Jose Suarez, the chief of neurosciences critical care at Johns Hopkins, confirmed that Murphy suffered a small hemorrhagic stroke. A hemorrhagic stroke occurs when a blood vessel inside the brain breaks and bleeds.
“He has shown tremendous progress, and at the current rate of improvement, we expect that he will make a full recovery following rehabilitation,” Suarez said in a statement provided by Murphy’s office.
Senate Duties and Remote Work
Murphy said his office will remain fully operational while he recovers. The senator noted that he is communicating with his staff and legislative colleagues remotely so that constituent services and ongoing policy priorities proceed without interruption.
The health emergency came during an intense political period. In the days leading up to the incident, Murphy had traveled across the country to campaign for Democratic congressional and gubernatorial candidates in battleground states including Minnesota, Michigan and Florida. He also completed his annual 70-mile walk across Connecticut in September and conducted an official trip to the Middle East in early October.
Murphy was not on the ballot this year, having last won reelection to a term that runs through 2030. In the Senate, he serves on the Foreign Relations, Appropriations, and Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committees, and acts as deputy secretary of the Senate Democratic Caucus.
Other Lawmakers’ Experiences
Murphy is not the first member of the upper chamber to confront a stroke while in office. Three other Senate Democrats have suffered strokes in recent years, including Sen. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico and Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, both of whom experienced strokes in 2022 and subsequently returned to full legislative duties.
Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania also suffered a stroke during his 2022 campaign. Fetterman returned to work and continues to utilize assistive technology, including computerized audio captioning tablets, to facilitate spoken conversations on Capitol Hill.
It remains unclear precisely when Murphy will return in person to the Senate floor, but his medical team said his inpatient rehabilitation will be key to determining his timetable for resuming daily congressional activities in Washington.
