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Indiana governor brain-damaged after stroke
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- Indiana Gov. Frank O'Bannon has suffered brain damage as a result of his massive stroke, a hospital statement said Tuesday, but the extent of damage is unknown. The 73-year-old governor remains in critical condition and on life-support at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, where he had been attending a conference. Two brain scans Tuesday morning showed that the blood that had flowed into O'Bannon's brain from a broken blood vessel was completely gone after a three-hour surgery Monday, the hospital statement said. Dr. Wesley Yapor, who headed the neurological team that performed the operation, said they have detected some damage to the brain, but it could range from mild to severe. Mild damage would appear in the form of slurred speech, while severe would result in more debilitation. "It is still possible the governor may recover substantial neurological function," Yapor said. "We just do not presently know." O'Bannon, 73, remained in a drug-induced coma, the hospital said. On Monday, Yapor said, "At the present time, he cannot ... function as governor." At about 9 a.m. Monday an aide to the governor attempted to reach O'Bannon by phone and then by knocking on the door of his room at the Palmer House Hilton Hotel. When he got no answer, the aide summoned a hotel security guard, who opened the door and found O'Bannon on the floor of a closet -- unconscious but breathing, said Dr. Patrick Connor, who was working in the emergency room where paramedics took O'Bannon a few minutes later. Within two hours, O'Bannon was in surgery, Connor said. Critical to his ability to recover is the amount of time that blood from a broken blood vessel filled his skull, putting pressure on the brain's delicate tissues. Doctors said they were heartened that in O'Bannon's case it may have been no more than a few hours. "The recovery is really in terms of weeks and months and not hours and days. That puts us in a very difficult situation trying to predict what the future holds. A lot of things can happen, both good and bad," said Dr. Hunt Batjer, chief of neurosurgery at Northwestern. "We see some amazing recoveries from people that you would not expect to do so, and we see the opposite. It's just to soon to call on this one." In Indianapolis, O'Bannon's press secretary Mary Dieter said the staffs of the governor and Lt. Gov. Joe Kernan were researching transfer of power. The state constitution provides for the speaker of the house and the president pro tem of the senate to send a statement to the Supreme Court stating that the governor is not able to carry out his duties, she said. The Supreme Court then has 48 hours to determine whether that is true. If so, the governor's powers would devolve to Kernan, Dieter said. A Democrat, O'Bannon recently underwent his annual physical, she said. "The doctor pronounced him not only with a clean bill of health, but said he wished he were as healthy." O'Bannon's wife, Judy, and one of his adult daughters were at the hospital after being taken from the family's home in southern Indiana by helicopter to Chicago's Midway Airport. A number of the governor's staff members were also at the hospital, Sullivan said. O'Bannon had been in Chicago since Sunday with Kernan to attend the Midwest U.S.-Japan Conference, said Andrew Stoner, his deputy press secretary. The meeting of CEOs from more than 200 companies is held to foster trade and cooperation between U.S. and Japanese executives. It began Monday and is to end Tuesday. The two-term governor served from 1989 to 1996 as lieutenant governor under Evan Bayh, now a U.S. senator, after 18 years as a state senator from Corydon, representing all or part of eight southern Indiana counties, the biography on his Web site said. During his early years as a lawyer, O'Bannon also worked at the family-owned newspaper, The Corydon Democrat, shooting pictures, covering general news, writing sports stories and stuffing the paper's sections together. O'Bannon wrote the newspaper's editorial about President Kennedy's assassination.
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