Sharon Out Of Surgery After Stroke

Israeli PM Suffers 'Massive Bleeding' In Brain

(CBS/AP) 
Dr. Larry Goldstein, director of Duke University's stroke program, said much depends on the extent, location and duration of the bleeding.

"Bleeding in some areas of the brain, if it's caught early enough, you can actually have not a bad outcome," he said.

Sharon was put in an ambulance at his ranch in the Negev Desert after complaining about feeling unwell. The stroke happened during the hourlong drive to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, Dr. Shmuel Shapira of the hospital told Channel 10 TV.

Doctors checking Sharon late last month said he weighed 118 kilograms (260 pounds) at the time of the first stroke but had since lost more than 2 1/2 kilograms (six pounds) and was otherwise in good health. Sharon is about 170 centimeters (5-foot-7).

The prime minister had been taking blood thinners since the first stroke to prevent another clot, but such drugs also raise the risk of cerebral hemorrhages, which account for only about 10 percent of strokes. Other possible causes are ruptured blood vessels, an aneurysm, or bulge in a vessel wall that bursts, or even chronic high blood pressure.

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.

Cabinet Secretary Yisrael Maimon said Sharon's authority was transferred to Olmert because the prime minister was under general anesthesia. Under Israeli law, he will 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 the same hospital 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 with a platform of seeking a compromise for peace with the Palestinians. He was putting together a list of candidates for the parliamentary election when he fell ill Wednesday.

In the March 28 election, Sharon had been expected to face off against Benjamim Netanyahu, the tough-talking former prime minister who recently won the Likud primaries, and Amir Peretz, the union leader who recently unseated veteran Israeli politician Shimon Peres as head of the liberal Labor Party.

Olmert, who could emerge as Sharon's successor in Kadima, would likely have a far tougher time beating either Netanyahu or Peretz than Sharon would have.

According to Israeli law, Olmert as deputy premier assumes the post of prime minister for 100 days if Sharon becomes incapacitated. Then, Israel's ceremonial president would meet with political leaders and choose someone to form a coalition government.

Two senior U.S. envoys postponed their visit to Israel and the Palestinian areas because of Sharon's condition, Palestinian officials said Thursday.

U.S. National Security Council official Elliott Abrams and State Department official David Welch were to have arrived in Israel later Thursday, to try to settle a dispute between Israelis and Palestinians over the participation of Jerusalem residents in Palestinian parliament elections Jan. 25.