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March 28, 2024

Politics:

Sen. Harry Reid working from home after accident

Updated Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2015 | 12:21 p.m.

Sen. Harry Reid missed the first day of the 114th Congress after breaking several ribs and bones in his face and suffering a concussion in a fall while exercising over the holidays.

He’ll work from his home in Washington, D.C., according to a statement his staff sent 30 minutes before the new Congress was expected to get underway.

In a video his office released Tuesday afternoon, Reid said he wished he could be in Congress, but he's following doctor's orders.

"I had my presentation made to start the new Congress," he said, his right eye badly bruised, "... and I really have some homesickness, for lack of better description."

The Nevada Democrat included in a tweet this morning a picture of himself with a bandage over his eye meeting with fellow senators.

The incoming Senate minority leader fell Thursday when a resistance band he was using to exercise at his home in Henderson snapped and hit him in the face.

Reid broke multiple bones near his right eye and broke several ribs as he hit the floor.

Tests found no bleeding in the brain or any other internal bleeding, Jentleson said.

Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat, told reporters today that the band “tossed him like a sling shot” against some built-in cabinets. Reid’s face and the side of his body smashed into the cabinets.

Durbin said Reid “is pretty banged up.”

“Imagine going through the windshield of a car, what your face might look like,” he said, noting that Reid’s face is discolored and bruised.

Reid was discharged from University Medical Center in Las Vegas on Friday, according to Reid spokeswoman Kristen Orthman, who said he’d be back in Washington, D.C., and “ready for the Senate to convene on Tuesday.”

Reid’s staff stressed today that the senator is working, including speaking with President Barack Obama multiple times. He will keep a busy schedule in the coming days, his staff said.

Durbin said he’s surprised at how quickly Reid is recovering.

“He’s made substantial progress in a short period of time,” he said. “He was lucid, on his game.”

Durbin, of Illinois, will assume Reid’s floor duties for the time being.

The Senate switched from Democrat to Republican control today, as new members in the Senate and House of Representatives were sworn in for the new Congress.

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