Hahn Stricken by Seizure and Is Hospitalized

Veteran Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn suffered a post-stroke seizure Friday afternoon while working in his office and was flown to Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital, where doctors said he will remain for several days.

According to Hahn aides, the 67-year-old supervisor had been dictating letters when he suddenly slumped in his chair and blacked out. Chief Deputy Mas Fukai said he and press aide Dan Wolf lifted Hahn out of his chair and put him on the floor while other aides got wet towels.

“I was scared, awfully scared,” Fukai said. “After he came to, he asked me what happened--’Is it my heart, did I have another stroke?’ ”

Paramedics were summoned and they flew Hahn aboard a Fire Department helicopter to Daniel Freeman, where he had been hospitalized for three months after suffering a stroke last Jan. 11. At that time, aides at first said the supervisor had suffered a dizzy spell and only several days later acknowledged that he had suffered a paralyzing stroke.

Both Hahn’s wife, Ramona, and his son, Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn, were notified of the incident and went directly to the hospital.

Wolf told reporters that after Friday afternoon’s episode, Hahn was able to talk and move his right arm and leg without problems. Last January’s stroke left Hahn confined to a wheelchair and unable to walk without assistance, with his left hand paralyzed and with some speech loss.

Dr. Bruce Dobkin told reporters at Daniel Freeman that Hahn’s seizure was the first the supervisor had suffered since the stroke. Dobkin said that nearly one-fifth of all stroke victims suffer such seizures, and that medication prescribed after Hahn was hospitalized should avert any future episodes.

Not Age-Related

“This kind of problem does not imply any new injury or damage to the brain,” Dobkin said. “It affects the surface of the brain. It’s like an epileptic attack or a convulsion and it’s very common.” He said that if stroke victims develop such a condition, it is usually within one or two years of their stroke.

Dobkin said the seizure was unrelated to Hahn’s age and said the supervisor was “alert, awake, coherent and is expected to go back to work” after a few days in the hospital.

The popular supervisor is now in his ninth term as the representative of the 2nd District, which includes South-Central Los Angeles, Culver City, Inglewood, Gardena and Hawthorne. Despite his stroke, he has vowed to seek reelection next year to an unprecedented 10th four-year term.

After he left the hospital April 11 and returned home for several months to convalesce and undergo outpatient therapy, questions lingered over whether Hahn would ever return to his duties as a supervisor. Within days, however, he put that speculation to rest by vowing to return and said, “I’m going to be fighting.”

Back at Meetings

But it was not until nearly four months later, on Aug. 6, that Hahn attended his first board meeting since his stroke. He told his colleagues that the secret of recovery is to “fight, fight, fight back,” adding that “my presence here is a symbol for forward-looking plans.”

The supervisor had been under doctor’s orders to work only part-time, as little as an hour a day, while he continued to go to Daniel Freeman for therapy.

In recent weeks, however, Hahn was spending more and more time at board meetings. An intensely media-conscious and outspoken officeholder, Hahn played an active role since his return in recent board actions concerning bans on brandishing toy guns and the control of pit bull terriers.

Dobkin said that although Friday’s seizure would have occurred regardless of how much Hahn had been working lately, perhaps the episode “will slow him down to a normal pace.”