Boughton back in the saddle

WEST HARTFORD — Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton got back in the campaign saddle on Monday, giving a hug to the opponent who helped treat him on Thursday after collapsing with a seizure during another event.

Boughton and state Rep. Prasad Srinivasan, of Glastonbury, another GOP gubernatorial hopeful, embraced and exchanged a greeting at the start of a candidate forum with the local Republican Town Committee.

Boughton doesn’t remember whether he took his anti-seizure medication last week, hours before he collapsed, convulsing, on the floor of a Republican Party event in Avon.

“It was a seizure brought on from dehydration,” Boughton said during an interview, clarifying statements he and University of Connecticut Health Center made on Friday that attributed his collapse to dehydration alone, despite an apparent seizure witnessed and graphically described by several people.

Boughton, a GOP gubernatorial hopeful, said the Pittsburgh doctor who removed his benign brain tumor last summer reviewed the tests performed in the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington, and agreed that Boughton was severely dehydrated.

“He looked at my CT scan and said I was good to go,” Boughton said. “Hydration and nutrition was the No. 1 reason I fell down.”

Boughton, a ninth-term mayor and former member of the state House of Representatives, said the hospital was handcuffed by federal privacy rules, but its incomplete news release on Friday afternoon had been the result of a collaboration with his campaign.

Besides two long walks every day with his dog, Boughton said he doesn’t exercise as much as he should. He said he takes the commonly used anticonvulsant drug Keppra twice a day as a result of the removal of the tumor last August. The website Rx List Inc. says side effects of Keppra could include drowsiness, weakness, dizziness and loss of elimination.

“I have been taking it daily, but I don’t remember taking it that day,” said Boughton, who does not use a dispenser with the days of the week labeled, but instead just takes them out of the druggist’s bottle. “I think I did but there is a possibility I did not take my Keppra.”

By Saturday, Boughton, 54, felt well and he attended a St. Patrick’s Day event.

At about 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, shortly after speaking to area Republicans in a forum featuring statewide GOP candidates and attended by about 200, Boughton fell after what witnesses called an apparent seizure. He turned blue while physicians including Srinivasan of Glastonbury, assisted Boughton while awaiting emergency responders.

Boughton said sometime this week he wants to get together with Srinivasan to possibly discuss the incident in public together.

Zach Murdock / Zach Murdock Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton returned to work at City Hall on Monday, after suffering a medical episode late last week at an event for Republican candidates for governor.