Tom Bradley Has Triple Bypass Surgery

Former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley underwent triple bypass surgery Wednesday, two weeks after suffering a heart attack.

Bradley, 78, came through the surgery “very well” and his vital signs were good, his physician, Dr. Fred Alexander, said late Wednesday afternoon. He said the former mayor, whose condition was listed as fair, was recuperating in the post-surgical cardiac intensive care unit at Kaiser Permanente’s Hollywood hospital.

Bradley, who had remained at the hospital since he was stricken March 20, had been in good spirits throughout his hospitalization and had responded well to treatment. But physicians, wanting to keep him under close observation, had declined to set a release date.

Alexander said the surgery was recommended earlier this week, when the hospital’s team of cardiac specialists became concerned that Bradley seemed very weak and became short of breath whenever his exercise level was increased. Those were signs, the physician added, that the heart was not getting an adequate supply of blood, and specialists conducted further studies. He said Bradley immediately agreed to the surgery.

Even before surgeons completed their work, it was clear that Bradley’s heart function was improved, Alexander said. He could not say how long the former mayor would remain in intensive care.

“We’re not quite out of the woods yet,” he said, noting that complications are always a concern in the hours and days after surgery. “But we see a light.”

Earlier, Alexander had said Bradley’s fitness and vigor were serving him well in recovering from the heart attack--he is a former UCLA track star who had continued to work out regularly. After leaving the mayor’s office in 1993, Bradley began practicing with a downtown law firm.

As with his initial hospitalization, news of which was not released for at least two days, Kaiser did not give any information about the surgery until it was over, at the family’s request.

Bradley’s wife, Ethel, and their two daughters were at the hospital throughout the surgery. Ethel Bradley requested that visitors be restricted until her husband recovers his strength, Alexander said.

Mayor Richard Riordan, who succeeded Bradley upon his retirement, was vacationing in Idaho but said in a statement released by his press office: “I wish Tom the speediest of recoveries from his surgery. The prayers and best wishes of all Angelenos are with him.”

The son of Texas sharecroppers who moved to Los Angeles when he was a boy, Bradley made history with his 1982 election as the city’s first African American mayor and went on to serve an unprecedented five terms. He built coalitions of blacks and liberal to moderate whites and called on his ties with labor and the business community to rebuild Bunker Hill into a cluster of glistening skyscrapers to give the sprawling city a traditional “downtown.”