Republican, 84, absent from Senate after fall that led to hospital stay, says he will continue recovery at home
  • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    24·
    1 day ago

    Same here. When the video by his DC neighbor came out showing the ambulance, the EMT was standing in the back with the doors open, McConnell’s feet clearly visible behind him on the gurney, and the EMT was casually doing something else in no hurry to get going. Other witnesses also mentioned that when it left there were no sirens.

    So yeah, dead or brain dead like you say, but clearly not coming back.

    Personally I think his people are gonna give it a bit of time, anywhere from a couple days to a month, and then announce some kind of downturn that has now resulted in his “sudden and unexpected” death. But he’s been gone all along, IMO.

    • meco03211@lemmy.world
      151·
      1 day ago

      EMTs are actually trained not to rush things. If you consciously slow your pace you can prevent an adrenaline dump in hectic scenarios. Also he could be stable after being resuscitated. I wouldn’t characterize what the EMT did as indicative of him not being… salvageable (that doesn’t seem like the right word?).

      I’d also doubt he was clinically dead if they are still formally reporting him as alive. There is going to be a lot of paperwork that needs to fall exactly in line if he had been dead all this time but not being reported. There’s a lot of people involved that would need to remain silent on the truth and be willing to post date/fudge information. I just don’t see them wanting to roll the dice on that.

      • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        9·
        1 day ago

        You’re probably right about the “stable after resuscitation” thing. I assume that means independent breathing and heartbeat. I don’t know much about emergency medicine, though I have always heard a body can maintain independent life support with only minimal brain health. (This is probably before your time but I was around when the Karen Ann Quinlan thing was going on with all its endless debates.)

        But it’s not just that. In an interview with Katie Couric last month, Gov. Andy Beshear said,

        Well, Mitch McConnell’s boss are the people of Kentucky. There are constituents which deserve honesty and transparency. It had been a month before anything had been put out, not even an official statement from Senator McConnell. In fact, I’d gotten two calls from different agencies, not state agencies, suggesting he’d passed. So, this rampant speculation that was out there, it needed to end.

        That’s McConnell’s governor himself saying he got calls “suggesting” that McConnell was already dead, not from individuals but unnamed and “not state” (presumably federal) agencies.

        Most importantly, McConnell himself still hasn’t ended the speculation when to do so would be easy enough if he were conscious and alert. Instead, AI press releases come out of his office with “proof of life” photos that are both problematic in their own right, strongly suggesting that his people are already going to extreme lengths to keep his actual condition a secret, already remaining silent on the truth, already creating false evidence to support a fraudulent pretense of not just life but ongoing improvement. Yet he personally never shows.

        So for me, I don’t think it’s a stretch to consider that people already committing that kind of fraud on the public would stop short of a job well done. But that’s not a slam on someone that doesn’t want to go there; I can understand why anyone would want more proof. It’s not like a hearty set of lies has never come out of the US govt before, lol.

      • Carl@anarchist.nexusEnglish
        5·
        22 hours ago

        EMTs are actually trained not to rush things. If you consciously slow your pace you can prevent an adrenaline dump in hectic scenarios.

        Yeah, the saying is “slow is smooth; smooth is fast.” Basically, slow down and make sure you’re doing things intentionally. That will be faster in the long run than needing to redo things because you rushed, or doing things wrong and making the situation worse.

    • bigfish@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      3·
      1 day ago

      How safe is his seat? If it’s even close, I’d reason this is being held back so the Republicans don’t have to run someone new until after the upcoming election cycle. “Emergency temporary appointment” or some BS because “it’s too close to the election”.

      • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        9·
        1 day ago

        McConnell announced his retirement in February 2025 and was not seeking re-election this year, meaning that Kentucky was always going to elect a new senator for his seat this November anyway. Otherwise your point is well taken, and it was McConnell himself who pulled that “too close to an election” shit with Obama’s Supreme Court nomination.