LOS ANGELES — Zsa Zsa Gabor was hospitalized in critical condition today and might have suffered a stroke while undergoing hip replacement surgery after a fall at her Bel-Air home, her publicist said.
John Blanchette said he spoke to Gabor’s husband on Thursday and was told the 93-year-old actress “was bleeding excessively” and was not responding to surgery.
“She hasn’t talked. She wasn’t speaking. They were worried about that. They took her off morphine to see if that might be the cause,” Blanchette said. “She’s vacant.”
Gabor’s husband, Prince Frederic von Anhalt, “told me that she was bleeding excessively … and that the doctors told her that she may have suffered a stroke during the operation,” Blanchette said.
Blanchette said he was not able to speak directly to Gabor’s doctors and could not confirm her condition today.
“We’re all still hopeful,” he added.
Gabor, a Hungarian-born sexpot of the 1950s and 1960s, was watching her favorite television game show in bed last Saturday when she tumbled out of bed while trying to answer the telephone.
Gabor has to use a wheelchair after being partially paralyzed in a 2002 car accident. She was trying to reach her wheelchair to get out of bed but its brake wasn’t on and it moved away, spilling her out of the bed, Blanchette said.
She underwent more than three hours of surgery at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center to replace her hip but may have received other injuries from the fall, Blanchette said.
“She had a bump on her head. She had a contusion on her arm. So they weren’t sure what else is going on,” he said.
A message left with Frederic von Anhalt was not immediately returned today.
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