Beau Biden returns to Delaware with father
Aug 23, 2013, 2:39 AM
DOVER, Del. (AP) – Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden returned home Thursday with his father, Vice President Joe Biden, and other family members after undergoing a medical procedure at a Houston cancer center.
A small motorcade of SUVs with dark tinted windows arrived at Joe Biden’s house shortly before 4 p.m. Thursday afternoon after Air Force Two touched down at the New Castle County airport following a flight from Texas.
“On our way home! Can’t wait to get back. Thank you, Houston,” the younger Biden said earlier Thursday in a Twitter post that included a photo of him with his wife and parents.
Beau Biden, 44, was admitted earlier this week to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center after becoming weak and disoriented during a vacation in Indiana last week. His hospitalization came two weeks after emergency dispatchers received a call from the vice president’s Delaware home, where Beau Biden is staying, regarding a report of a possible stroke.
Beau Biden suffered a minor stroke in 2010.
In a statement released Wednesday by the White House, the vice president and his wife, Jill, said their son was returning to Delaware after undergoing “a successful procedure,” but they did not provide any details.
“He will follow up with his local physicians in the coming weeks,” the statement read.
The White House declined to answer any questions about what procedure was performed, including whether it was diagnostic or therapeutic in nature.
Biden was initially admitted to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago last week. He traveled the next day to the Philadelphia hospital where he had been treated after his stroke in 2010 to consult with his doctor. He spent last weekend at home in Wilmington before going to Houston.
Jason Miller, a spokesman for the Delaware Department of Justice, said Beau Biden spoke Thursday morning with his chief deputy, as he had Wednesday afternoon.
Miller refused to provide any information about Biden’s health and said he did not know when the attorney general would return to work.
“He’ll continue to be in regular touch with the office, as he has been this week,” Miller said.
On Wednesday, authorities in Delaware confirmed that an emergency call was received from the vice president’s house two weeks ago.
A county dispatch center log indicates that on Aug. 1, someone at the vice president’s home was reported to be possibly having a stroke and apparently not alert. Beau Biden has been staying at his father’s Greenville home while his own house is renovated.
Rickie Clark, a staff supervisor with the Cranston Heights Fire Co., confirmed that county dispatchers received a call for help from Joe Biden’s home, but he refused to provide further details.
The dispatch log on the fire department’s website, first reported by The News Journal of Wilmington, shows two references to the vice president’s home on Aug. 1, one at 9:25 p.m. and another about a minute and a half later. Both cite “Cva-Not Alert,” indicating that a person was in distress and apparently not alert or responsive to his or her surroundings. Clark said “Cva” is shorthand for cerebrovascular accident, or stroke.
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Lederman reported from Washington.
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