Overview
- Murphy began having numbness while at his son’s hockey game and was taken to a local hospital where doctors diagnosed a stroke before transferring him to Johns Hopkins for further monitoring, his chief of staff said.
- His office says he is awake, alert and responding well to treatment, and doctors are encouraged and optimistic he will make a full recovery, though no timeline for a return to public duties has been released.
- The medical event has interrupted near-term plans: Murphy, 53 and not up for reelection this year, had been traveling nationally to support Democratic candidates and was scheduled to campaign with Rep. Chris Pappas.
- Johns Hopkins is a tertiary care center that provides advanced stroke monitoring and treatment, and the transfer indicates doctors sought specialist care for assessment and observation.
- The episode comes after recent high-profile activity by Murphy, including a speech criticizing the president’s Iran plan and an earlier fall incident in which his office received a suspicious-substance letter, and it may curb his campaign travel and fundraising while he recovers.