Israel's Sharon Suffers Massive Stroke

Israel's Sharon Suffers Massive Stroke

By STEVE WEIZMAN, Associated Press Writer
23 minutes ago

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a massive stroke Wednesday and was on a respirator after falling ill at his ranch. Doctors operated to drain excess blood from his brain.

Powers were transferred to his deputy, Vice Premier Ehud Olmert.

Dr. Shlomo Mor-Yosef, director of Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, said Sharon suffered "a significant stroke," adding that he was "under anesthetic and receiving breathing assistance." A few minutes later, Mor-Yosef emerged to say that initial tests showed Sharon had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, or bleeding in his brain.

Mor-Yosef said Sharon, 77 and overweight, had "massive bleeding and was being transferred to an operating theater."

Dr. Shmuel Shapira of Hadassah Hospital told Channel 10 TV that Sharon was taken to an operating room to drain the blood after suffering what he termed a "massive stroke." Israeli TV reported the operation had begun and that it would likely take several hours to complete.

Sharon was put in an ambulance at his ranch in the Negev Desert after complaining about feeling unwell. A doctor said the stroke developed while he was being taken to the hospital in Jerusalem, a drive of about an hour.

Channel 2 TV said Sharon was suffering from paralysis in his lower body. Analysts on Israeli TV stations said his life could be in danger.

The health crisis came hours before Sharon was to undergo a procedure to seal a hole in his heart that contributed to a mild stroke on Dec. 18. Since then, Sharon has been receiving blood thinners to try to prevent a recurrence of the clotting that caused the initial stroke.

Cerebral hemorrhages — bleeding in the brain — account for only about 10 percent of strokes and can result either from rupture of blood vessels or leaking due to too much blood thinner medication.

"It's among the most dangerous of all types of strokes," with half of victims dying within a month, said Dr. Robert A. Felberg, a neurologist at Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans. "Any time they give blood thinners to prevent clots there is a risk" that too much can cause a hemorrhage, he said.

Sharon is about 5-foot-7 and weighs 250-300 pounds, but doctors checking him last month said he otherwise was in good health.

Cabinet Secretary Yisrael Maimon said Sharon's authority was transferred to Olmert because the premier was under general anesthetic.

The dramatic decline in Sharon's health comes as Sharon runs for re-election on March 28 at the head of a new centrist party, Kadima. He enjoys a wide lead in the polls. The party's strength is centered on Sharon, and if he were forced to step down, Israel's political scene would be thrown into turmoil.

Sharon's office said his personal physician was with him at the ranch in Israel's south.

Shapira said the massive stroke "apparently developed during the trip, and it developed quickly, as these events do."

Security agents and police spread out around the Jerusalem hospital before Sharon arrived, setting up a security perimeter. Later, they surrounded Olmert's residence in Jerusalem. Under Israeli law, Olmert is to serve as acting prime minister until Sharon can resume his powers.

On Dec. 18, Sharon was taken to Hadassah Hospital from his office after suffering the mild stroke. Doctors said he would not suffer long-term effects, but they discovered a birth defect in his heart that apparently contributed to the stroke.

Sharon had been scheduled to check into Hadassah Hospital on Thursday for a procedure to repair a tiny hole between the upper chambers of his heart. Doctors said the blood clot that briefly lodged in Sharon's brain last month, causing the mild stroke, made its way through the hole and from there to a cranial artery.

Sharon first came to prominence as an army officer, setting up a unit that fought Palestinian infiltrators in the 1950s. Advancing through the ranks of the army, he served as commander of the Gaza region after Israel captured the territory in the 1967 war, launching punishing raids.

After serving in the 1973 Mideast war, Sharon left the military and entered politics, forging the hardline Likud Party, which came to power in 1977.

As defense minister, he directed Israel's ill-fated invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and was forced to step down by an Israeli commission of inquiry, which found him indirectly responsible for a massacre of Palestinians in two refugee camps by Christian Phalangist soldiers.

Sharon re-emerged as prime minister in 2001, and two years later he reversed his course of decades of support for Jewish settlement construction and expansion in the West Bank and Gaza, promoting a plan for unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and part of the West Bank. The pullout was completed in September.

The withdrawal fractured his Likud party, and he left it to form Kadima. He was putting together a list of candidates for the parliamentary election when he fell ill Wednesday.