Reno Hospitalized but OK After Fainting in Church

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno fainted Sunday in church, and was expected to remain overnight in a Georgetown hospital for observation. A hospital physician described her condition as “good,” and Reno told President Clinton she was feeling fine.

For the second time in about a year, Reno felt nauseated and then fainted, but recovered relatively quickly. The first incident occurred in November at a law conference in Mexico City and was attributed to exhaustion and fatigue.

She was at Full Gospel AME Church in suburban Maryland when, after about an hour and 15 minutes into services, she felt ill, abruptly sat down in the pew and blacked out for a few seconds.

She was helped by another churchgoer, a staff physician at Georgetown University Medical Center. A 911 call brought rescue workers, who found Reno conscious and talking, according to the local fire department.

Reno, 60, was taken to the Georgetown hospital, where she was to be monitored overnight in the coronary unit, said Dr. Paul Katz, the hospital’s chief operating officer. Her vital signs--heart rhythm, heart rate, respiration and blood pressure--were good, he said.

“This is just a fainting spell. Her condition is good,” Katz told Associated Press, adding that by midafternoon Reno was “feeling fine,” joking and spending part of the day reading work materials and talking to her staff and family.

Reno has a mild case of Parkinson’s disease, a degenerative condition that in her case is noticeable only by a tremor in her left hand. There was no evidence that either fainting spell was related to the Parkinson’s or to the medicine she takes to ease the condition, according to her staff.

During the Mexico City incident, the attorney general was under considerable pressure to decide whether to appoint an independent counsel to investigate the legality of telephone fund-raising calls made by Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, an idea she rejected then. While she is currently weighing new independent counsel appointments, they are not immediately looming.

Clinton, in San Antonio for a fund-raiser for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Garry Mauro, was asked about Reno. “She’s fine, I think. I had a good talk with her. She sounded great.”