Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell reportedly tripped and fell while disembarking from a plane earlier this month before he abruptly froze mid-sentence during a news conference on Wednesday, according to reports.
Mr McConnell fell from a plane at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on 14 July after the flight was cancelled and everyone had boarded the plane, two sources told NBC News.
The 81-year-old has recently started using a wheelchair as a precaution while travelling in crowded places such as airports, a source said.
A passenger who was in the same plane as Mr McConnel said he had a “face plant” and another passenger helped the Republican leader, according to the report.
On Wednesday, he abruptly stopped while speaking during the weekly Republican leadership press conference and had to be led away by colleagues.
The Kentucky senator stared vacantly for around 20 seconds before his colleagues who were standing behind him asked him if he wanted to return to his office. He did not respond but slowly walked back.
He returned later to the conference and said he is “fine” and answered questions from the press.
“The president called to check on me. I told him I got sandbagged,” he joked, in an apparent reference to a quote from Joe Biden in June he made after he tripped over a sandbag and fell while onstage at the US Air Force Academy graduation.
A polio survivor as a child, Mr McConnel has long acknowledged some difficulty as an adult in climbing stairs.
Mr McConnel was out of the Senate for almost six weeks after he sustained a concussion and fractured a rib when he fell and hit his head after a dinner event at a hotel earlier this year. He was hospitalised for several days.
In 2019, he also tripped and fell at his home in Kentucky, causing a fracture in his shoulder and required surgery.
“He’s definitely slower with his gait,” a Republican senator was quoted saying by NBC. They added that “he doesn’t address” his health issues even during closed-door meetings with GOP leaders.
