Reid: Recovery of vision ‘not a slam dunk’

WASHINGTON – Sen. Harry Reid said Friday he suffered a serious injury to his right eye in a gruesome New Year’s Day accident, and that full recovery of his vision “is not anything that is a slam dunk.”

In his first interview since the incident, Reid said on KNPR, Nevada Public Radio in Las Vegas, that it is hard for him to see from the eye, where blood has accumulated after his face slammed into cabinets at his new home in Henderson.

The Nevada Democrat said he was close to completing an exercise regimen when resistance bands he uses for strength training broke and snapped back on him and “catapulted me backwards.”

“Fortunately it missed my temple by just a little tiny bit,” he said during phone interview from his home in Washington.

“It was hard to believe,” Reid said. “My wife, fortunately, was there with me.”

Reid said that besides breaking bones around the eye, he also broke four ribs in the accident; previously his office said he had broken three ribs.

Reid said he was examined by Henderson ophthalmologist Dr. Darrick Neibaur, “and I have a series of physicians back here who are doing everything they can to resolve the problem I have with my right eye, but it is not going to be resolved tomorrow.”

Doctors are hopeful for a full recovery “but this is not anything that is a slam dunk. I had a serious injury in my eye. There is blood accumulation there and they are hoping it resolves itself.”

“I have great confidence they are doing everything they can to help me, and I am following their orders.” Reid said he is limiting his reading to avoid straining his good eye.

Reid, 75, said the accident has not caused him to rethink plans to run for re-election in 2016, maintaining he is in top physical shape despite his injury.

“I don’t know many people who can do 250 situps,” as he said he does three times a week. “Nobody has ever questioned my physical ability. I am confident in my ability to fight back and I will fight back.”

Reid said his exercise routine three days a week includes the situps, yoga and stretching resistance bands “hundreds of times.” Aides said he does 420 repetitions on the bands three times a week to exercise his arms and chest.

Reid has remained at his home in Washington while the Senate has gotten underway for the 2015 session. He said he will not be attending a Senate Democrat retreat in Baltimore next week because doctors are concerned about him bouncing around in a car.

“It is a day-to-day deal,” he said.

A video Reid released on Tuesday shows him with a bruise along his jaw and bruises visible beneath a bandage over his eye. Reid said it “doesn’t look much better now. The bruising has moved down in my face.”

Contact Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760. Find him on Twitter: @STetreaultDC.