Chief Justice has seizure, falls; Court says he has recovered
on Jul 30, 2007 at 5:15 pm
UPDATE: At 6:40 p.m., the Supreme Court issued the following statement:
“Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., took a fall about 2 p.m. today near his summer home in Maine after suffering what doctors describe as a benign idiopathic seizure. He experienced minor scrapes in the fall. The Chief Justice is fully recovered from the incident. He was taken by ambulance to Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport, Maine, where he underwent a thorough neurological evaluation, which revealed no cause for concern. He will remain overnight at the medical center as a precaution. The Chief Justice experienced a similar event in 1993.
“The Chief Justice is 52 years old and was appointed to the Court in 2005.”
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UPDATED to 5:20 p.m. Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathleen Arberg said that the Chief Justice remained at the hospital at this hour, and that he was “conscious and alert.” She confirmed that he was taken for examination to the Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport after a fall on a dock on Hupper Island at around 2 p.m. As of this time, Ms Arberg said, Roberts has not been admitted to the hospital.
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Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., fell at his vacation home on an island just off the coast of Maine at mid-afternoon Monday, and was taken by ambulance to a hospital in the area “as a precaution,” the Supreme Court disclosed. There were no immediate details on whether he was injured, or how severely, or about the circumstances of his fall, according to Kathleen L. Arberg, the Court’s public information officer. Roberts is 52.
His summer home, bought in the late spring of 2006, is on a 2-acre plot on Hupper Island, about 2 kilometers off the coast from a point near Port Clyde, Maine. Port Clyde is described locally as “a fishing village located on St. George Peninsula, which is a point of land between the towns of Thomaston and Rockland.” Roberts’ home there is about 225 feet from shore with a water view across Muscongus Bay toward the mainland, according to a news wire account in June 2006. That report said the island had 20 to 30 homes.
An initial report Monday indicated that the Chief Justice was taken to Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport, Maine, within 15 miles of Port Clyde. A public information representative at the Center said at 4 p.m. Monday that she could not confirm “at this time” that the Chief Justice was a patient.
One news account said that Roberts was taken by private boat from his home to the mainland, and transported to Rockport by ambulance.
