Panic gripped Washington at its highest levels yesterday as heart-attack prone Vice President Dick Cheney checked into an area hospital suffering from shortness of breath.
But calm was quickly restored when the 63-year-old veep walked out of the hospital under his own power after spending five hours undergoing a battery of tests.
He claimed there was no cause for alarm.
“I feel fine,” Cheney said while leaving George Washington University Medical Center shortly before 4:30 p.m.
A pacemaker implanted in Cheney’s chest indicated no irregularities during the past 90 days, said Mary Matalin, a spokeswoman for the vice president.
She said Cheney probably had a viral upper respiratory infection but there was no cardiac or pulmonary problem.
The man who is just one heartbeat from the presidency had trouble breathing following a pheasant-hunting trip in South Dakota last week, the White House announced.
Cheney, who was also fighting off a cold and has a long history of heart trouble, told his doctors he couldn’t catch his breath.
Even though Cheney has suffered four heart attacks, White House officials were quick to downplay the seriousness of Cheney’s current condition.
“When I talked to him, he sounded just fine,” Matalin said, adding that his cardiologist – Jonathan Reiner -advised having the tests done to be safe.
“He was doing this just as a precaution.”
Matalin was quick to point out that Cheney walked into the hospital under his own power and did not need an ambulance.
Cheney’s boss -President Bush – was tearing up a dirt trail out in suburban Maryland on a 90-minute mountain-bike ride at the time Cheney was taken in for tests.
Bush, who often encourages Americans to lose weight and exercise, was told about Cheney’s latest scare by his chief-of-staff, Andy Card, when he returned to the White House from the Secret Service training grounds where he regularly rides. With Post Wire Services
A summary of Vice President Dick Cheney’s heart problems:
1978: His first heart attack.
1984: His second heart attack.
1988: After his third heart attack, has quadruple bypass surgery to clear clogged arteries.
November 2000: He suffers a “very slight” heart attack, his fourth, and undergoes an angioplasty to open clogged artery.
May 5, 2001: He feels chest pains and undergoes another angioplasty to reopen the same artery.
June 30, 2001: He has a special pacemaker an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, or ICD inserted into his chest.
Nov. 13, 2004: He enters the hospital after complaining of shortness of breath.
Source:AP