House Majority Whip Steve Scalise remains in critical condition, according to MedStar Washington Hospital.

President Donald Trump says this has been more difficult for the Jefferson Parish Congressman than we originally thought. He says Scalise is in some trouble, but he’s a great fighter.

“I visited Steve and his family at the hospital last night, and I reassured them that the entire country is pulling for them, praying for them, and that we are here for them every single step of the way,” Mr. Trump said.

The hospital says the gunshot wound to his left hip fractured bones, injured internal organs, and caused severe bleeding. MedStar confirmed the hospital traversed the pelvis, and LSU Health New Orleans trauma surgeon Dr. John Hunt says that could pose some problems.

“There’s a lot of big blood vessels there, and then you also have the gastrointestinal tract, which brings into play contamination and infection,” Hunt said.

MedStar tweeted that Scalise has undergone two procedures. One of the procedures was necessary to stop the bleeding, as the hospital says Scalise was in shock. Hunt says what that means is the patient lost a lot of blood.

“Usually that’s manifest by low blood pressure, very fast heart rate, and you have to start working on correcting the hemorrhage, getting that stopped, and then getting the patient’s blood volume replete again,” Hunt said.

MedStar tweets that Scalise will need more operations. Hunt says it’s not uncommon for gunshot wounds impacting the stomach to result in multiple surgeries. He says typically patients will undergo one procedure at the beginning and then come back for more.

“We’ll just do an initial surgery to go in, stop the bleeding, control any contamination, and then once the patient has been stabilized and is out of shock, the patient will be brought back to the operating room to finish the operation,” Hunt said.

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