Monday, September 13, 2021 at 2:04:00 A.M. EDT
President Bush, with a scrape on his face, talks with reporters Jan.14, 2002, at the White House about fainting briefly in the White House residence Sunday night, after choking on a pretzel.
(RON EDMONDS/AP)
(Originally published by the Daily News on January 14, 2002.)
President Bush set off a White House scare yesterday when he fainted and fell off a couch while choking on a pretzel, officials said.
“I do not find any reason that this would happen again,” said White House physician Dr. Richard Tubb. “He fainted due to a temporary decrease in heart rate brought on by swallowing a pretzel.”
[N.S.: English translation: Choking on a pretzel.]
After regaining consciousness, Bush looked like a pummeled prizefighter. He had a half-dollar-sized bruise on his left cheek and a busted lower lip, apparently from tumbling off the couch and hitting the floor, Tubb said.
Bush was in a room with his two dogs watching the Baltimore Ravens play the Miami Dolphins on TV when the pretzel went down the wrong pipe and caused him to choke. The President figured he wasn’t out for more than a moment, according to White House spokesman Ken Lisaius.
“He thought it was only a few seconds, because Spot and Barney were in the same position they had been in – looking at him a bit strangely,” Lisaius said.
First Lady Laura Bush was on the phone in a nearby room at the time.
“He said it [the pretzel] didn’t seem to go down right,” Tubb said.
GRA: Neither did his presidency.
--GRA
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