Michael Grimm, a former U.S. representative from Staten Island, was paralyzed after a fall from a horse during a polo competition in September. The condition of Mr. Grimm, a Republican and former F.B.I. agent and Marine who resigned from Congress in 2015 and served seven months in prison for tax fraud, was first reported by a colleague from Newsmax, where Mr. Grimm had found a second career as an on-air personality.
The colleague, Greg Kelly, said on his radio show that the accident happened during a polo tournament on Sept. 22. He required emergency surgery, Mr. Kelly said.
“He’s a great horseman, and he was thrown from the horse and seriously damaged his neck,” Mr. Kelly said on the program. “Please say a prayer.”
Vincent Ignizio, a former city councilman from Staten Island and a friend of Mr. Grimm, said the former representative was paralyzed from the chest down.
Mr. Grimm, who first won election to the House in 2010, was indicted in 2014 after failing to report nearly a million dollars in gross receipts from a restaurant he had owned in Manhattan called Healthalicious, and lying about it under oath.
After winning re-election later that year, he pleaded guilty to felony tax evasion and resigned his seat representing the 11th Congressional District, which includes Staten Island and a part of Brooklyn, in January 2015. He was later sentenced to eight months in prison, serving seven.
After his release, Mr. Grimm ran in the 2018 midterms to recapture his old House seat, but lost in the primary to Representative Dan Donovan, the incumbent. Mr. Donovan ultimately lost to Max Rose, a Democrat.
In 2022, Mr. Grimm traveled to Ukraine, according to his website, GrimmReporting.com, as an at-large correspondent for Newsmax, reporting on the ground from the conflict zone.
Since his fall in September, Mr. Grimm has remained hospitalized, first at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, N.Y., and then at Kindred Hospital East New Jersey in Passaic, according to Mr. Ignizio.
Mr. Grimm’s initial emergency surgery was successful, but he later contracted pneumonia, which he battled for weeks, Mr. Ignizio said.
The former representative is now staying at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in New Jersey, the same institute that oversaw the recovery of the actor Christopher Reeve, who was paralyzed in a horse fall in 1995.
“If there is anybody that can show the strength and fortitude and will to ensure his full recovery, it’s Michael Grimm,” Mr. Ignizio said. “He’s a tough Marine and a tough patriot, and we are all just praying.”
Mr. Grimm was known for his pugnacious attitude as a representative. In 2014, he threatened to throw a reporter off a balcony who was questioning him about a federal investigation into his campaign fund-raising. Mr. Grimm subsequently apologized.
An online fund-raiser for Mr. Grimm, which was started this week, set the cost of his ongoing medical needs at $2.5 million.
“He has been in the most devastating of situations and through the grace of God, Mr. Grimm has miraculously thread the needle to survive,” the fund-raising site read.
Mr. Ignizio said that Mr. Grimm had received donations from both sides of the aisle, including from former opponents. “It’s been really heartening,” he said. “This is who we are, and we are going to all pull together to fight for him.”
Mr. Grimm had long been passionate about polo, Mr. Ignizio said, regularly competing in tournaments in the Hudson Valley. On Aug. 31, Mr. Grimm posted a picture on X of him standing beside a chestnut horse that was wearing a Trump 2024 visor, its forelock sticking out.
“Meet Leonidas my Republican horse,” Mr. Grimm wrote, adding that Leonidas urged people to vote for Donald J. Trump.
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