By Heather Grossmann
DNAinfo Reporter/Producers
MANHATTAN — Former President Bill Clinton had surgery at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital on Thursday afternoon after experiencing chest pains, his spokesman said in a statement.
Doctors at the hospital placed two stents in his coronary artery to increase blood flow to his heart after Clinton, 63, was voluntarily admitted to the hospital following chest discomfort.
"He would have had a heart attack at some point," a hospital source told the New York Daily News, when asked what would have happened if he'd ignored the systems.
The former president, who was made special UN envoy to Haiti following the Jan. 12 earthquake there, was still on a conference call about relief efforts as he was wheeled into surgery, former head of the Democratic National Committee and close Clinton friend Terry McAuliffe told CNN.
“President Clinton is in good spirits and will continue to focus on the work of his foundation and Haiti’s relief and long-term recovery efforts,” said spokesman Douglas J. Band in a statement.
A half dozen helicopters hovered over the Milstein Hospital Building — the surgical wing Clinton is in — and over 150 members of the media were gathered outside the hospital's entrance at 165th Street and Fort Washington Ave. Thursday evening, prompting the NYPD to consider putting up barricades.
"I'm still in a little shock here but I’m hopeful compared to the way I was during the first phone call [about the incident]," said Clinton advisor and friend James Carville on CNN. "People all around the world genuinely love this guy."
In his capacity as special UN envoy to Haiti, Clinton has been traveling frequently and working very long hours, leading to speculation that exhaustion contributed to his heart trouble.
Clinton has a long relationship with the cardiology department at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. He was admitted there in 2004 for quadruple bypass surgery and returned the following year to have scar tissue and fluid build-up from the surgery removed.
Clinton's daughter Chelsea is reportedly with him at the hospital and they were joined later in the evening by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
