Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Reid says he has temporarily lost vision in right eye

Harry Reid At Obama Speech

Steve Marcus

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev) attends a speech on immigration by President Obama at Del Sol High School Friday, Nov. 21, 2014.

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid has temporarily lost vision in his right eye and is under doctor’s orders to stay home after a New Year’s Day exercise accident in which he broke several ribs and bones in his face.

In an interview today on KNPR radio, his first since the accident, Reid said he could miss attending the next week of Congress. Reid worked from home this week.

The Nevada Democrat said the accident came at the end of his three-day-a-week exercise routine, where he aims for 250 sit ups, does “yoga-type stuff” and resistance-band work.

Reid said he was using the second-strongest band when it snapped “and it catapulted me backwards and to one side, and I crashed into a series of cabinets we have.”

Reid broke multiple bones near his right eye and four ribs as he hit the floor. He also suffered a concussion and said he was lucky his temple missed the cabinets “by just a tiny little bit.”

His right eye is filled with blood and doctors are monitoring the situation, he said. He can take 25-minute walks, but he tries to avoid reading emails and exercise is “out of the question,” he said.

Tests at University Medical Center in Las Vegas found no bleeding in the brain or any other internal bleeding, spokesman Adam Jentleson said.

After flying to Washington, D.C, over the weekend in anticipation of the start of the new Congress, Reid announced an hour before the session started that he’d be working from home. He released a video the first day of the new Republican Senate showing his right eye bandaged and bloody, with bruises on his jaw.

The accident comes as Reid, 75, gears up for a 2016 re-election bid for a sixth term in the Senate.

He said today the accident hasn’t changed his plans on running, even for what is expected to be a tough race.

“No one has question in my physical ability,” Reid said. “I’ve always been confident in my ability fight back.”

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