Teresa Heinz Kerry In Critical Condition At Boston Hospital
BOSTON (CBS/AP) — Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, is in critical but stable condition after suffering a medical crisis on Nantucket.
Heinz Kerry, 74, was admitted into the emergency room at Nantucket Cottage Hospital at after 3:30 p.m. Sunday, hospital spokesman Noah Brown said.
A spokesman for John Kerry said Heinz Kerry was flown to Massachusetts General Hospital on Sunday night after being stabilized by doctors at Nantucket Cottage Hospital.
"The family is grateful for the outpouring of support it has received and aware of the interest in her condition, but they ask for privacy at this time," the Kerry spokesman said.
Heinz Kerry was taken to the emergency room in Nantucket, accompanied by her husband. Heinz Kerry arrived at the Nantucket facility in critical condition, and remained that way early Sunday evening, although doctors had stabilized her, Brown said.
Brown said he could not immediately release any more details about the Heinz Kerry's condition or her illness.
Nantucket Police Lt. Jerry Adams said a call requesting medical aid was received just after 3:30 p.m. for a home on Hulbert Avenue, and an ambulance was dispatched. Online records show the property is connected to Heinz Kerry's family.
George Riethof, a pilot who was at Nantucket Memorial Airport on Sunday night, witnessed Heinz Kerry being taken to Heinz Kerry's Gulfstream jet on the tarmac.
"I was coming off the runway after landing in Nantucket," Riethof said. "I saw ambulances on the runway, which caught my eye; I'd just come from Boston and I knew the Boston medflight jet was up in Boston."
The pilot said there were several vehicles around the jet and at least 15 people.
"I looked closely and saw that there was somebody on the stretcher coming out of the ambulance and being lifted up on the airplane," he said. "By the time I made the turn taxiing back onto the ramp, the stretcher was already on the airplane."
Heinz Kerry is the widow of former U.S. Senator John Heinz, heir to the Heinz ketchup fortune. She married John Kerry in 1995.
Doctors treated her for breast cancer in December 2009. She previously has said she found in late September that year that she had cancer in her left breast after having her annual mammogram.
A month later, she underwent lumpectomies on both breasts at a Washington hospital after doctors also discovered what they thought was a benign growth on her right breast. That diagnosis was initially confirmed in postoperative pathology, but two other doctors later found it to be malignant.
In November 2009, Heinz Kerry had another pair of lumpectomies performed at Massachusetts General Hospital.
John Kerry has been at the Nantucket home since returning from nearly two-week around-the-world diplomatic trip to the Mideast and Southeast Asia in the pre-dawn hours of July 3.
Before his wife's medical problem, he had planned to return to Washington on Monday and then co-host with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew high-level strategic and economic talks with senior Chinese officials on Wednesday and Thursday.
Kerry had also spoken of his desire to make his sixth trip to Israel as secretary of state starting at the end of the week. State Department officials said Kerry's schedule is now in flux pending developments with his wife's health.
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