Sen. Chris Murphy’s stroke started with something small. His arm went numb while he watched his son’s hockey game on Saturday afternoon, his office said. Doctors at a local hospital found he had had a stroke, and he then moved to Johns Hopkins for further monitoring.
He is “awake and alert,” his chief of staff, Allison Herwitt, said in a statement on Sunday, CNBC reported. “We are optimistic he will make a full recovery,” she said.
Murphy is 53. His case shows how a stroke can begin with a symptom that is easy to shrug off. Federal health data suggest many Americans would not know what to do next.
What Murphy’s office has said
The account so far comes from Herwitt’s statement. “Yesterday afternoon, Senator Murphy started experiencing numbness in his arm while at his son’s hockey game,” she wrote, NPR reported. She said he “is responding well to treatment” and that his doctors feel encouraged by his progress.
The statement did not name the local hospital or say what type of stroke he had. The Associated Press report published by PBS gave no further medical details. This article does not guess at them.
Murphy is not on the ballot in Tuesday’s midterms. CNBC and NPR both describe him as a possible 2028 presidential contender.
He had been campaigning for Democrats around the country, with recent stops in Michigan, Minnesota and Florida. CNBC said he was due in New Hampshire on Sunday to campaign with Senate candidate Rep. Chris Pappas.
Colleagues from both parties sent good wishes. Fellow Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal posted on X that he was “certain I’ll be welcoming him back to the Senate soon.” Republican senators Chuck Grassley and Pete Ricketts offered prayers, the AP said.
President Donald Trump said he was “really surprised” and added, “Nobody wants to have that.”
Other senators have come back from a stroke. Democrats Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland each had one in 2022. Both have since recovered, the AP noted. John Fetterman had a stroke in 2022 while running for the Senate.
Arm numbness is the sign most people already know
Sudden numbness on one side of the body is the stroke symptom Americans recognize best. In survey data cited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 93% of respondents named it as a symptom. Only 38% knew all the major symptoms and also knew to call 911.
That gap matters more than the headline number. The other signs are less familiar. And knowing a symptom is different from acting on it within minutes.
The CDC’s stroke signs page lists five sudden changes that call for a 911 call:
- Numbness or weakness, especially on one side of the body
- Confusion, or trouble speaking or understanding speech
- Trouble seeing in one or both eyes
- Trouble walking, dizziness, or loss of balance or coordination
- A severe headache with no known cause
The word that ties the list together is “sudden.” Symptoms often come on quickly, says the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. But they can also develop over hours or even days.
How the BE FAST check works
The CDC teaches a quick check called BE FAST. B is for balance: is the person dizzy or unsteady? E is for eyes: has their vision changed?
For the face, ask the person to smile and look for one side drooping. For the arms, ask them to raise both and watch for one drifting down. For speech, have them repeat a simple phrase and listen for slurring.
The last letter is the instruction. T stands for time: if you see any of these signs, call 911 right away.
The agencies add two practical points. The CDC says to note when the symptoms started, because that helps doctors choose a treatment. Both the CDC and the NHLBI say not to drive yourself to the hospital or let someone else drive you. An ambulance crew can start care on the way, and “during a stroke, every minute counts,” the NHLBI says.
Symptoms that fade within minutes still count. They may signal a transient ischemic attack, often called a mini-stroke. The CDC says to tell a health care team right away, and the NHLBI says a TIA can turn into a full stroke.
The treatment clock starts at the first symptom
Speed matters because the main treatments have time limits. About 87% of strokes are ischemic, the NHLBI says. In those, a clot or plaque blocks blood flow to the brain. The rest involve bleeding in or around the brain.
For ischemic strokes, the main treatment is a clot-dissolving drug called tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA. A provider injects it into a vein.
The NHLBI’s treatment page says doctors give it within three hours of the first symptoms, or up to 4.5 hours for some patients. Doctors can also thread a catheter from the thigh to the blocked artery and pull the clot out. That procedure is a thrombectomy.
The CDC puts the stakes plainly. The most effective treatments work only if doctors recognize and diagnose a stroke within three hours of the first symptoms. Patients who arrive late may no longer qualify. So the moment a symptom began, such as an arm going numb in the stands, is one of the first things an emergency team asks about.
Bleeding strokes need different care, such as lowering blood pressure, stopping blood thinners or surgery, the NHLBI says. Doctors need a brain scan to tell the two types apart. That is one more reason the agencies say to call an ambulance rather than wait.
Stroke is not only an older person’s problem
Stroke before 65 is not rare. In 2014, 38% of people hospitalized for stroke were younger than 65, the CDC says. Someone in the US has a stroke every 40 seconds, and more than 795,000 people have one each year.
People can control many of the risks. Those factors account for 82% to 90% of all strokes, according to the NHLBI. It lists high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol as risks shared by both main types. One in three US adults has at least one major risk factor, the CDC says, and its list adds smoking and obesity.
At younger ages, men are more likely than women to have a stroke, the NHLBI notes. Women tend to live longer, so their lifetime risk is higher. Our explainer on why women’s heart health now has four life stages shows how stroke fits into heart risk over a lifetime.
This article gives no medical advice beyond what the CDC and NHLBI publish. Questions about your own blood pressure, cholesterol or other risks belong with a doctor.
A senator off the trail on election eve
Murphy’s absence comes in the last days before Tuesday’s vote. Democrats are trying to flip Senate seats in the races outlined in our guide to the 2026 Senate races to watch. Herwitt’s statement gave no timeline for his discharge from Johns Hopkins or his return to the Senate.
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