Medical experts say aortic dissection mimics heart attack with chest pain, breathlessness, fainting
US Senator Tommy Tuberville has given new accounts of what happened to his fellow Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham before he died at his Washington, DC, home on Saturday, according to a CNN report.
“Lindsey called, called basically, said, ‘Listen, I’m having chest pains. You know, I need to do something,'” Tuberville told reporters on Monday, relaying the account of one of his staffers who was with Graham’s scheduler on Saturday evening when the late senator called his scheduler complaining of chest pains and asked her to call 911.
When Graham’s scheduler arrived at his house, “911 had knocked the door down, and they were working on him,” Tuberville said, relaying the account of his staffer.
Graham had just returned to the US hours earlier from a diplomatic trip to Ukraine on behalf of President Donald Trump, who told reporters about his last interaction with Graham.
“He said, ‘I’m tired because it’s a long trip,’ but other than that, he was fine,” Trump recalled.
An autopsy is currently being performed to determine Graham’s cause of death, but Taylor Reidy, a communications director for Graham, said that the DC medical examiner’s office preliminarily found the senator died from complications stemming from what is called an aortic dissection, which is essentially a tear in the inner layer of the aorta, the main artery running through the body.
Read: Pivotal US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham dies at 71
Medical experts said that while aortic dissection is not a heart attack, the symptoms are similar, including chest or stomach pain, shortness of breath, and loss of consciousness.
While the final autopsy results are still pending, Senator John Cornyn told reporters that he would like to see Graham’s toxicology report released “to rule out any foul play” and put to rest any false theories spreading online.
“I saw the initial diagnosis of a dissected aorta, which is terrible, I mean, obviously, that could cause his death, but given where he was and the sorts of things he was advocating for, I think we just ought to resolve all those questions by seeing what the toxicology reports show,” said Cornyn.
CNN previously revealed that emergency responders were dispatched to Graham’s home Saturday evening “for a report of someone suffering chest pains,” according to audio of the dispatch.
Tuberville said that Graham’s scheduler, who called 911, used to work in his office and was at a restaurant with one of his current staffers when Graham called.
“Lindsey basically worked himself to death,” said Tuberville. “Most of us have families. He didn’t have any family, and if we had a couple of days off, he went to that airport. He went somewhere to try to work out something for our country”.













