Former President Bill Clinton was rushed this morning to Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City.



Clinton was working at his Harlem office and began to experience chest pain. His Secret Service detail rushed him up about 30 blocks to the hospital, which is in northern Manhattan. His wife, Hillary, was en route to the hospital. The couple shares a Hudson Valley home in Chappaqua, NY.


Sources said Clinton underwent a stent operation. A coronary stent is a tube placed in the coronary arteries that supply the heart, to keep the arteries open in the treatment of coronary heart disease.

Sources told IrishCentral that the operation had gone smoothly and the former President was resting comfortably and being monitored. He may be released overnight or tomorrow morning,

Clinton has previously had heart surgery, and has suffered for years from high cholesterol, which he has tried to keep under control through dieting.

On Sept. 2, 2004, Clinton was evaluated at Northern Westchester Hospital in New York for chest pain and shortness of breath. Results were normal, and Clinton went home. The next day, further evaluation at the Westchester Medical Center (probably a cardiac angiogram) led to the recommendation for urgent four-vessel coronary bypass grafting.

Clinton ultimately underwent successful bypass surgery.