Indiana Governor in Drug Induced Coma After Brain Surgery

CNN ^ | Monday September 8,, 2003 6:35 EDT | Grace Ramirez

[meg70]

Indiana Governor Frank O'Bannon is in a drug induced coma and the next 24-48 hours are critical to determining his survival, doctors at Northwestern Medical Hospital said after the Governor underwent brain surgery.

Dr. Wesley Yapor, the neurosurgeon who headed the surgical team, said blood was removed from both side of the Governor's brain.

The source of the major bleeding appeared to be a stroke, Yapor said, but some other blood appeared to be caused by a fall.

[meg70]

Indiana State employees have been told that he is most probably dead at this point.

Does sucession go through the Lt. Governor in this case

[GiveEmDubya]

Yes, Joe Kernan will become governor if this is it for the current governor.

Either way, knowing via a family experience what a cerebral hemorrhage is like for the patient, if O'Bannon survived, he would likely be unable to perform his duties due to incapacitation.

[jern]

That is terrible

[meg70]

The State Constitution says that the Speaker of the House and Senate President Pro Tem must send a statement to the Indiana Supreme Court and they must decide in 48 hours..

[ambrose]

Ghoulish.

Your post will likely be quoted on the Rat Underground (not that I care, but...).

[glock rocks]

damn. prayers for the man.

All y'all will face your maker.

[RightWhale]

This is a good chance

Can we hold off on discussion of this aspect?

[GiveEmDubya]

Though this isn't really the time for such discussions, we were probably going to win next year anyway. O'Bannon is term-limited out next fall, so nothing has changed.

[Old Sarge]

Our Hoosier brothers north of the river are looking hard at this.

A state Governor is Commander-in-chief of the National Guard of that state. As such, it's a command issue. The new Governor gets to appoint the new state Adjutant General - the Two-star who leads the troops - or retain the current TAG in his position.

Command shake-ups usually go panic mode for an hour or two, then settle into the routine again.

[meg70]

So the Supreme Court does not have to rule on the report by the Speaker of the House and Pro Tem of the Senate before moving to re assign command?

[Old Sarge]

The current command structure would remain in place until told otherwise. Only the Governor can assign, or dismiss, the TAG.

At least, that's how it is in the Bluegrass.

[michigander]

This is a good chance for the GOP to FINIALLY pick-up the Govenorship...

Thank goodness there are assholes like you here to bring something like that up right now.

[meg70]

And they might not know in 48 hours if the guy can recover or not..

[A Broken Glass Republican]

It was directed at Kernan. Not O'Bannan. The point being, Kernan gets no advantage.

And let the idiots on DUhhh do whatever they want. Ever seen the way the speak of President Reagan?? Besides...They don't matter. They just had a fund-raiser and got about 700 contributions.

[A Broken Glass Republican]

And you're going to pretend like you weren't thinking it??

[Dog Gone]

I doubt there is a physician anywhere who would say that he can recover from this. They did exploratory surgery, and the findings were not good.

[ItsBacon]

Prayers for the governor and the government of my recently adopted state.

[A Broken Glass Republican]

Sorry if it offended. Bad call on my part. Just trying to point-out that the Lt Gov wasn't running next year.

[meg70]

I had a friend and the same thing happened to him, the results are devastating..