Former US President Jimmy Carter ‘feels fine’ after fall

PLAINS, Ga.  – Former President Jimmy Carter fell Sunday at his home in Georgia and needed some stitches above his brow, but “feels fine,” his spokeswoman said.

FILE – In this Sept. 18, 2019, file photo, Former President Jimmy Carter answers questions submitted by students during an annual Carter Town Hall held at Emory University in Atlanta. A spokeswoman for Carter said the former president fell at his home but “feels fine.” Deanna Congileo said in an email that Carter fell Sunday, Oct. 6, 2019, at his home in Plains, Ga., and needed stitches above his brow. Carter turned 95 on Tuesday, becoming the first U.S. president to reach that milestone. (AP Photo/John Amis, File)

Deanna Congileo said in an email that the 39th president fell Sunday in Plains, Georgia, and received stitches. Carter turned 95 on Tuesday, becoming the first U.S. president to reach that milestone.

Congileo said Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, who is 92, were eager to be at a Habitat for Humanity build in Nashville, Tennessee. The opening ceremony for the project was scheduled for Sunday evening and it runs through Friday.

Carter survived a dire cancer diagnosis in 2015 and surpassed George H.W. Bush as the longest-lived U.S. president in history this spring. He has had some trouble walking after a hip replacement in May, but regularly teaches Sunday School.

Meanwhile, he has continued with his humanitarian work. And he also has occasionally weighed in on politics and policy, recently expressing hopes that his Carter Center will become a more forceful advocate against armed conflicts in the future, including “wars by the United States.”

“I just want to keep the whole world at peace,” Carter had said as he presented his annual Carter Center report last month.

“We have been at war more than 226 years. We have been at peace for about 16 years” since the Declaration of Independence in 1776, he said, adding that every U.S. military conflict from the Korean War onward has been a war of “choice.”

Carter also has been accepting visits from several 2020 presidential candidates, but he’s held back on endorsing any of his fellow Democrats, offering only clues to his thinking. /gsg