Sanders, 78, had entered the hospital Tuesday night after experiencing chest pain at a campaign event, and doctors had inserted two stents in a blocked artery, a relatively common procedure. But the campaign did not confirm he had a heart attack until Friday, leaving open questions about Sanders’ condition as he remained off the campaign trail this week.
Television cameras filmed Sanders as he left the hospital Friday, waving to onlookers and pumping a fist, then driving off in an SUV.
“After 2 1/2 days in the hospital, I feel great, and after taking a short time off, I look forward to getting back to work,” the senator said in a statement.
His doctors in Las Vegas, Arturo E. Marchand Jr. and Arjun Gururaj, said in the statement that after Sanders experienced the chest pains Tuesday night, he went to a medical facility where he was given a diagnosis of a myocardial infarction, or heart attack.
He then was transferred to Desert Springs Hospital Medical Center, where doctors inserted the stents. He spent three nights at the hospital.
Following the medical episode, Sanders canceled his events and appearances for the week, though his campaign has said he will participate in the next Democratic debate, to be held near Columbus, Ohio, on Oct. 15.
His campaign had said Thursday that Sanders would return to his home in Burlington, Vermont, by the end of the weekend. It was not immediately clear Friday when he would fly home.
Sanders has been polling in the top tier of the Democratic primary race, behind former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and his staff is trying to project optimism about his candidacy. But the incident has cast a shadow over his campaign just as he was attempting to reinvigorate it after a summer slump that saw his standing in the polls slip.
Hoping to reverse course, he had recently begun to focus more on his electability, arguing that he is the candidate best positioned to beat President Donald Trump in the general election.
Sanders’ heart procedure has also renewed scrutiny on age in the Democratic primary, whose top candidates are all in their 70s: in addition to Sanders, Biden is 76 and Warren is 70. Trump is 73.
The Sanders campaign announced this week that it had raised $25.3 million in the third quarter, placing him ahead of Warren, his chief ideological rival, by a hair and at the top of the field in fundraising.
In a show of force, the campaign announced a $1.3 million ad buy in Iowa that it then postponed amid Sanders’ hospitalization; the ad will now begin airing Tuesday, and will run for two weeks as planned.
This article originally appeared in
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