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Thursday, Jan. 31, 2002 12:49 p.m. EST
Reno Fainting Spell Her Third Public Collapse
Former Attorney General Janet Reno's fainting spell last night while addressing a group of Rochester University students in New York is actually the third time she's collapsed in public in the last five years.
Most media accounts have omitted Reno's history of fainting from their coverage of the RU incident, where she first said she needed to sit down, then keeled over behind a podium and hit the floor hard.
And after her release from an area hospital this morning, Reno herself tried to put on a brave front, reminding reporters that even President Bush had fainted three weeks ago after choking on a pretzel.
However, the ex-AG's history of public collapses includes an episode in November 1997, where she passed out for several seconds while attending an international law enforcement conference in Mexico City.
The Associated Press reported at the time:
"The 59-year-old attorney general became nauseated and fainted briefly Tuesday evening while attending the opening reception of a conference of prosecutors from 28 Western Hemisphere nations, Justice Department spokesman Bert Brandenburg said. ...
"Hospitalized overnight in Mexico City by fatigue and gallstones, Attorney General Janet Reno shortened her stay at a law enforcement conference Wednesday. She flew to Florida for a family holiday before deciding whether an independent counsel should investigate President Clinton."
Ten months later, in September 1998, Reno collapsed again while attending church services in Washington, D.C.
Spokesman Brandenburg told USA Today at the time that Reno was standing when she felt nauseous and fainted after sitting down. A doctor from Georgetown was at the service and immediately went to Reno's aide.
Again she was hospitalized and was released the next day.
Though Reno is said to be on powerful medication for her Parkinson's disease, which was diagnosed two years before her first public collapse, her doctors have repeatedly insisted she is well enough for the arduous campaign she's currently waging to unseat Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
Still, even with most journalists overlooking Reno's history of fainting spells, the former AG struggled to cast last night's episode in a positive light.
Again invoking the Bush example, she told reporters Thursday morning, "Well, [at least] I don't have a bump on my cheek."