Lt. Governor and U.S. Senate primary candidate John Fetterman underwent successful surgery Tuesday to implant a pacemaker with a defibrillator, his spokesman said.
The procedure came four days after Fetterman’s campaign announced the former Braddock mayor had suffered a stroke.
“John Fetterman just completed a successful procedure to implant a pacemaker with a defibrillator,” spokesman Joe Calvello said in a prepared statement. “The procedure began at 3:15 p.m. John was released at 5:56 p.m., and he has been given the all-clear that it was successful. He is resting at the hospital and recovering well. John continues to improve every day, and he is still on track for a full recovery.”
Fetterman tweeted a statement that “I’m track for a full recovery.”
I just got out of a procedure to implant a pacemaker with a defibrillator in my heart. We got the all-clear that it was successful, and that I’m on track for a full recovery.
Thank yinz for the well-wishes – it means the world to me. ????
Now back to resting + recovering!
— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) May 17, 2022
State Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman will step into the lieutenant governor’s role while Fetterman, 52, remains hospitalized, according to Gov. Tom Wolf.
“This is a short-term transfer of power, and we hope and expect the lieutenant governor to resume his duties very soon,” Wolf said in a statement issued shortly after 6 p.m. Tuesday.
Fetterman has been hospitalized in Lancaster since Friday.
In a brief video released Sunday, Fetterman said he “just wasn’t feeling very well” on Friday and went to the hospital at the urging of his wife, Gisele Barreto Fetterman.
“I had a stroke that was caused by a clot from my heart being in an A-fib rhythm for too long,” Fetterman said. He said the doctors were able to remove the clot, “reversing the stroke,” and got his heart under control.
Fetterman’s heart condition, atrial fibrillation, occurs when the heart’s top chambers, called the atria, get out of sync with the bottom chambers’ pumping action. Sometimes patients feel a flutter or a racing heart, but many times they’re not aware of an episode.
Prior to the surgery, Fetterman voted via emergency absentee ballot from Penn Medicine Lancaster General Hospital. His wife voted Tuesday morning in Braddock.
Fetterman, a Democrat, had been leading the polls ahead of Tuesday’s primary, which features a number of candidates on both sides vying for the U.S. Senate seat that Sen. Pat Toomey will give up at the end of his term.
