Hip Repaired, Reagan Faces a Difficult Recovery

Former President Ronald Reagan, who survived a bullet wound from a would-be assassin, made it through surgery without complications Saturday and is now confronted with a common trauma of the elderly: recovery from a broken hip.

Reagan was in stable condition at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica after a 75-minute procedure to repair his right hip, his doctors said. Reagan had fallen in his Bel-Air home on Friday.

After surgery, which involved using a pin, screws and a plate, his doctor warned that the 89-year-old’s recovery would be difficult, given his age and physical condition.

“As is typical with anyone of his age with a broken hip, it’s a long, uphill struggle,” said Dr. Kevin Ehrhart, an orthopedic surgeon.

Nancy Reagan was by her husband’s side until moments before the surgery and during the operation was only one room away. She rejoined him in the recovery room afterward, Ehrhart said.

While Reagan’s bones and tissue resemble those of a much younger man, he is at risk of pneumonia or heart failure because of his age, Ehrhart said. His recovery will also be complicated by Alzheimer’s disease, which the former president was diagnosed with seven years ago, Ehrhart said.

“It represents a challenge, especially in rehabilitation,” Ehrhart said of the disease.

With the exception of the patient’s fame, Ehrhart said, the surgery was fairly routine.

Reagan is expected to be sitting up today. Within the next two days, he should be using a walker. Within 10 days, he should return home and begin physical therapy, Ehrhart said. It will take months before the former president will be back to the condition he was in before the fall, he said.

In Washington, President Clinton said he and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton had communicated their concern to the Reagans.

“I’ve sent my concern and Hillary’s to President Reagan and Mrs. Reagan,” Clinton said shortly before leaving Washington for the presidential retreat at Camp David. “I wish him well in his surgery. Our prayers are with him.”

Mrs. Reagan was called before the surgery by President-elect Bush. She missed one from former President Gerald R. Ford, who called during the surgery. The Rev. Billy Graham sent a faxed message wishing the Reagans well.

Other than Nancy Reagan, family members have been unable to visit because of hospital restrictions, but they are expected to see Reagan as soon as his doctors approve it, said Joanne Drake, a Reagan spokeswoman.

“When visitation is lifted, Mrs. Reagan is looking forward to having his family visit with him,” Drake said.

One of Reagan’s daughters, Maureen Reagan, is a patient at the same hospital, receiving treatment for cancer.

Although the family has been careful not to share details about the progression of his Alzheimer’s disease, the former president reportedly has been slowly losing motor skills and has only been able to walk with the aid of a cane.

Reagan does not always remember he was once the 40th president of the United States, according to a few friends and acquaintances who have seen him in recent years.

Get-Well Messages From Admirers

As his doctors held a news conference to advise the country about his condition, admirers--Republicans and Democrats alike--stood in line Saturday outside the Ronald Reagan Library an hour away in Simi Valley to sign get-well notes and deliver flowers.

One thing is certain: The president is well regarded by the public, many of whom reminisced about his two terms in office during the 1980s.

Last year, a Gallup poll of Americans ranked Reagan as the fourth-greatest president after George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Nancy Reagan had asked admirers of the former president not to send flowers and cards to the hospital. Instead, well-wishers can contact the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library or the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation at https://www.reaganfoundation.org.

The library placed a large poster and a journal in its entrance for well-wishers to sign Saturday.

Carl Kennedy, a retired judge from Pampa, Texas, who came to the library with his family, is among those who signed the poster.

“It’s very disturbing to break a hip and be battling Alzheimer’s at his age,” said Kennedy, who also reminisced about the former president’s term.

“It grieves me our nation has moved so far away from the principles he stood for and are on display here.”

Messages of condolence scrawled on the poster echoed that sentiment.

“Ah, how we long for more people of your integrity to serve in political office. Thank You!” wrote Ron Steele of Paradox, Colo.

Well-wishers Stanley and Frances Daitch of Mountainside, N.J., sought out the library after they heard of Reagan’s fall while driving from Northern California to San Diego on a vacation trip.

“We were thinking about him, so we hunted on the map for this place,” said Daitch, a retired teacher. His wife added: “We’re basically Democrats. But I appreciate him more after going through the library.”

Sebastian Verhoeven of Simi Valley lingered next to a chunk of the Berlin Wall displayed outside the museum as his sister, Sandy Miskovic of Elgin, Ill., snapped a photo. “I feel sorry this has happened to him,” Verhoeven said. “He contributed a lot to the world.”

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Times staff writer Bob Pool contributed to this story.