Posted on 07/07/2006 7:04:32 PM PDT by rocksblues
Saying he was fine, former Secretary of State Colin Powell returned to a seminar Friday after being briefly hospitalized following a dinner with former President Clinton and others.
Powell, 69, arrived on time for a panel discussion at the Aspen Ideas Festival and showed no signs that he had been sick the night before.
"I'm fine. I look healthy, don't I?" he told the Aspen Daily News after the hour-long session. "I started hyperventilating a little and was feeling a little altitude sickness, I think.
"I probably would have been OK but they said, 'Oh god, let's take a look at him.' They took me to the hospital, gave me a quick examination and let me go."
Powell's Alexandria, Va.-based secretary, Peggy Cifrino, said Powell felt lightheaded, "stumbled a bit and sat down" before an ambulance was called. She said he told her that the altitude _ 7,900 feet _ had most likely caused his illness.
Powell spent a few hours at the hospital, Cifrino said, where doctors examined him to check his overall health.
"He's doing great," she said.
He was released from Aspen Valley Hospital at 1:45 a.m., police Sgt. Bill Linn said.
Powell served as secretary of state from 2001 to 2005 after a four- year stint as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Cifrino said he would return to Washington on Sunday.
I'd get sick too I f I had to have dinner with BJC and/or HRC.
If I had to eat with Clinton I'd probably come down with some sort of "illness" as well.
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Thanks,
Hmmm....
Powell better be careful whom he associates with. ENRON"s Ken Lay just died at Aspen a few days before.
7,900' can account for that. Some people are a lot more vulnerable to the effects of altitude than others. Especially if you get there in a matter of hours rather than gradually acclimatising.
Then again, was it that same Japanese dish that Bush 41 had?
are any of the elites NOT in Aspen this week?
I hope Bill didn't feed colin what he fed Monica.
Yuck!
A General, Secretary of State, National Security Advisor and Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff had never been at 7,900 feet before? Did he have the soup?
Army man, not a Zoomie!
True, he advanced to a four-star general in the Army. However, I don't see where his career would have confined him to a desk at low altitudes. He also held many other posts that required intensive travel. This is fishy IMO.
"former Secretary of State Colin Powell returned to a seminar Friday after being briefly hospitalized following a dinner with former President Clinton and others."
Clinton would make me sick, that is for sure.
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