Sen. John Fetterman Hospitalized After Suffering Fall Near His Home

Fetterman suffered a ventricular fibrillation flare, a condition where the heart stops pumping blood to the rest of the body.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) walks through the Senate Subway during a vote at the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 1, 2025. Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), the senior U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, was hospitalized on Nov. 13 after falling and hitting his face because of a heart-related issue.

Fetterman, a Democrat first elected in 2022, was walking in the morning near his home in Braddock, Pennsylvania, a suburban area surrounding the City of Pittsburgh. Due to “a ventricular fibrillation flare,” a condition where the heart stops pumping blood to parts of the body, he became “light-headed” and then fell to the ground, “hitting his face with minor injuries,” according to a statement released by his Senate office on social media.

He was later transported to the hospital and remains there.

“He is doing well and receiving routine observation at the hospital. He has opted to stay so doctors can fine-tune his medication regimen,” the statement reads.

In a statement, Fetterman said, “‘If you thought my face looked bad before, wait until you see it now!”

He has long faced health issues and, during his campaign for the Senate in 2022, suffered a stroke and was hospitalized for many weeks. He previously served as the 34th lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania and has attracted attention for his refusal to wear a business suit, instead wearing shorts and a shirt in the precincts of Congress.

Shortly after being sworn into office in 2023, Fetterman was hospitalized on Feb. 8, 2023, after feeling lightheaded during a retreat for U.S. senators. On Feb. 13, 2023, he sought admission to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (NMMC)—a military hospital in Bethesda, Md., where senators and representatives may be treated upon referral from the attending physician of the U.S. Congress—for “major depression.”

He was discharged from the hospital two months later, on March 31, 2023. During his hospitalization, Fetterman missed more than 85 percent of the votes in the Senate in February 2023 and March 2023.

In 2024, Fetterman’s former chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, wrote a letter to Dr. David Williamson, director of the Neuropsychiatry and Traumatic Brain Injury unit at the Walter Reed NMMC, who had overseen Fetterman’s care.

Jentleson wrote that Fetterman, in private settings, had engaged in “conspiratorial thinking; megalomania ... high highs and low lows; long, rambling, repetitive and self centered monologues; lying in ways that are painfully, awkwardly obvious to everyone in the room.”

Later, on June 9, 2024, Fetterman was involved in a car accident in Maryland. He was found to be at fault in the accident, having hit the rear of another vehicle while speeding. He was briefly hospitalized after that instance.

His term will expire on Jan. 3, 2029. He has not announced whether he will seek reelection in the 2028 mid-term election, which will coincide with the 2028 presidential election.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which Fetterman represents, is regarded as the primary battleground state for party nominees seeking to win the presidency.