By RACHEL DONADIO
Published: July 17, 2009
ROME — Pope Benedict XVI fractured his right wrist in a fall early Friday morning while on vacation in northern Italy, the Vatican said. He was released from the hospital later in the day after undergoing successful surgery.
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Vatican officials were quick to defuse any alarm over the first medical intervention known to the public since Benedict, 82, became pope in 2005.
“It’s nothing serious,” the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said in a telephone interview. He said doctors had ruled out the possibility that Benedict had been ill before falling.
Doctors operated on the pope’s wrist for about 20 minutes, Reuters reported. Father Lombardi called the operation “not difficult.” He said doctors had inserted pins to help the wrist heal, using a local anesthetic.
He added that the pope would have to wear a cast for about a month. News reports showed Benedict leaving the clinic smiling and waving with his left hand.
In a statement released by the Vatican, the pope’s private physician, Dr. Patrizio Polisca, said that Benedict was “in good condition.”
The Vatican said that the pope had slipped overnight in his room in the chalet where he was staying in the mountainous Valle d’Aosta region.
Father Lombardi said that Dr. Polisca, who travels with the pope, was already in Valle d’Aosta when the pope fell and that he oversaw the local doctors who performed the operation.
In a statement, the Vatican said that Benedict was well enough to eat breakfast and celebrate Mass before being taken by car to the local hospital on Friday morning.
After meeting President Obama the previous Friday, the pope arrived on Monday in northwest Italy, where he is scheduled to remain on vacation until July 29. He is then expected to return to his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo outside Rome until September.
Father Lombardi said it remained to be seen whether the pope would keep his two scheduled commitments: delivering an Angelus message in two parishes near Aosta on the coming two Sundays.
In recent months, Benedict has appeared tired in some of his public appearances. But he has kept up a public schedule, including an eight-day trip to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories in May.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/world/europe/18pope.html?bl&ex=1247976000&en=7d0339b05bc2733a&ei=5087%0A