U.S. Rep. Tubbs Jones Dies at 58
EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio — Democratic U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, the first black woman to represent Ohio in Congress and a strong critic of the Iraq war, died yesterday after a brain hemorrhage, a hospital spokeswoman said.
AP Photo/Mark Duncan
Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, during a meeting at Cleveland in May.
Tubbs Jones, 58, died yesterday evening of a brain hemorrhage caused by an aneurysm that burst and left her with limited brain function, said Eileen Sheil, a spokeswoman for the Cleveland Clinic, which owns the Huron Hospital in East Cleveland where Tubbs Jones died.
"Throughout the course of the day and into this evening, Congresswoman Tubbs Jones's medical condition declined," Ms. Sheil said in a statement from the clinic and Tubbs Jones's family.
The liberal Democrat, first elected in 1998, suffered the hemorrhage while driving her car in Cleveland Heights Tuesday night, the president of Huron Hospital, Dr. Gus Kious, said.
A brain aneurysm is a bulge in an artery in the brain. It can leak or rupture, causing bleeding in the brain.
Several news organizations, including the Associated Press, had reported earlier in the day that Tubbs Jones had died. That report, citing a Democratic official, was corrected a few minutes later when a hospital official held a news conference to say she was in critical condition.
