Emergency responders were called to Senator Lindsey Graham's Washington, D.C., home Saturday evening for a reported cardiac arrest, meaning the heart had stopped pumping blood, before Graham's office announced his death the following morning. Dispatch audio reviewed by Fox News Digital shows the first call came shortly after 8 p.m., with CPR underway inside the home roughly 20 to 25 minutes later. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for the District of Columbia has since released preliminary findings attributing his death to an aortic dissection, a tear in the wall of the body's main artery, caused by arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease.
What the dispatch audio shows
After the first call shortly after 8 p.m., dispatchers relayed that the caller had reported the front door was unlocked. Responding units arrived to find it locked, with no answer from inside. Metropolitan Police Department officers were then requested to force entry. Radio traffic roughly 20 to 25 minutes into the response indicated CPR was in progress inside the home.
The audio does not identify Graham by name or describe the patient's condition. Authorities classified the scene as a "Capitol Police matter only." The last relevant radio traffic came through shortly after 9:30 p.m.
Cause of death and what remains pending
The medical examiner's preliminary examination found Graham died of an aortic dissection caused by arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Arteriosclerosis refers to hardening and narrowing of the arteries over time, a process that can weaken arterial walls. His death certificate remains pending until toxicology and microscopic testing are complete.
Graham's office described his death as the result of a "brief and sudden" illness. He was 71.
Graham's final days and three decades of public service
The day before he died, Graham met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv. He was scheduled to appear on NBC's Meet the Press that Sunday morning.
Graham was first elected to the Senate in 2002, after four terms in the House of Representatives. He had won re-election three times and was seeking a fifth Senate term, having won his Republican primary last month. He chaired the Senate Budget Committee and served on the Appropriations, Judiciary, and Environment and Public Works committees.
He served 33 years across the U.S. Air Force, Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve, retiring as a colonel in 2015. That service included a posting in Germany during the Cold War, active duty during the Gulf War, and Reserve deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. President Donald Trump paid tribute on Truth Social Saturday night, calling Graham "a true American Patriot."