In this YouTube update, host Hugh Hewitt recounts his recent hospital visit with Dennis Prager, interweaving a clip from Dr. Kenneth Prager’s interview with PragerU’s Marissa Streit. Dr. Prager explains the medical specifics of Dennis’s C3‑C4 cervical spinal cord injury, its impact on the diaphragm, ventilator dependence, and the prognosis for breathing, speech, and motor function, drawing on personal family experience with similar injuries. Hewitt then shares his personal observations of Dennis’s demeanor, humor, and optimism, describes the visitation etiquette (“Fetching Mrs. Hewitt rule”), and reflects on Dennis’s long‑standing broadcasting career, past events, and political commentary. He emphasizes that while recovery timelines are uncertain, progress off the ventilator and the family’s history of recovery give hope for eventual return to radio and public speaking.
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You, I arrived on Saturday back to California with the fetching Mrs. Hewitt. Yesterday on Sunday, I was able to visit Sue and Dennis Prager. I want to bring you a full update on that, but I want to begin actually with Dennis's brother, Dr. Kenneth Prager, did a conversation with Marissa Street, who's the CEO of Prager University. If you haven't been to PragerU, visit prageru.com, PragerU. You can watch the whole conversation. But rather than have a layman and a dummy when it comes to medicine like me trying to explain Dennis's injury, I thought we would grab some from the Kenneth Prager interview with Marissa over at PragerU, let you hear from him, and then I'll tell you how it went yesterday. Here's Dr. Kenneth Prager and Marissa Streit. Cut.
Obviously, I was shocked, as was the entire family, when I heard about his accident. So in terms of a spinal cord injury of this nature. I am unfortunately all too familiar with this because my son Joshua had the exact same spinal cord injury, C3, C4, the third and fourth cervical spinal segments. So I know a lot about spinal cord injury. And ironically, Dennis and my father, Max, the last two years of his life, had a spinal cord injury that was as a result of a medical procedure when he was 94 years old, when he had to have an aortic valve replaced, and it resulted in a stroke in the spinal cord. So, so 3 close members of my family, immediate family, spinal cord injuries. When somebody has a spinal cord injury in the area that Dennis Prager has, it affects the nerves that go to the diaphragm. The diaphragm is the major muscle of respiration. It does most of the work of breathing. If the diaphragm is weakened as a result of the nerves that go to it being impaired, as they would be in a spinal cord injury, your breathing is impaired. And the fact, though, that Dennis is making significant progress in getting off the ventilator is a, is a very good sign. And very hopeful that he will ultimately be entirely liberated from the ventilator and be able to talk and even resume his radio shows at some point. That is obviously our hope. His mind is fine. Having said that, there's also, of course, the problem of movement and the paralysis. And so right now, Dennis does not move his arms or legs.
And that is— that is the whole of it. Dennis suffered a C4, C3, C4 spinal injury of unknown duration. Don't know how long it's going to go on for. He's off the ventilator. I went and spent an hour with him yesterday. Dennis could have 20 people visiting him at any time. So you got to kind of work through Sue when you go. And I spent an hour with him yesterday. He is as funny as ever, only a different kind of funny because he can't talk yet. He has talked a little bit and hopes to be back. He doesn't want any false optimism about when, but he hopes to be back in Q1 sometime on the air. Dennis, if Dennis can talk, Dennis will be fine. I've said that from the day I heard about his injury, and he looked so much better than I expected because I've been getting secondhand reports from Sue, from Alan Estrin, from everyone in the immediate aftermath of his accident 6 weeks ago. I didn't know what to expect, and all it was was Dennis without talking. And so Dennis in a bed, and he can't move. It'll be a while till we figure out the extent of how much movement he has, except his head and his very, very lively face. Dennis can, as any of those of you who have ever done an event with Dennis, and I've done hundreds of events with Dennis. We did our first Ask a Jew event, oh, probably a decade ago at Mariner's. Church down in Orange County, California. And I was amazed at how many people liked those events. And now they've kind of expanded out. Dennis and I did a half dozen of them. Now he does them with many people. Turns out lots of, uh, Protestants, Catholics, and every kind of sect you want— Muslims, agnostic atheists— along with you come to hear Dennis in the Ask a Jew program. And I look forward to doing with him again. I was so pleased. And a few things I made notes. Dennis wanted everyone to know that for years people would ask him, how are you doing? He'd say, better than my country. Now he says, well, my country is doing better than me because Donald Trump is back and I am on my back. But he is very, very upbeat about the country. Of course, he's consuming news 24/7. He doesn't have a priority for the president-elect. He thinks a lot of things will have to be done. He does think Hegseth is going to be confirmed, by the way, rather easily. He watches a lot of CNN. So that's one of the handful of viewers that they've got left is Dennis Prager. He doesn't want to convey false optimism. He does not want certitude about movement to be out there. He doesn't know. Nobody knows. He is, of course, encouraged by the fact that his nephew Ken, Dr. Prager's son, had the same injury to the C3-C4 area of his spine and is back walking and is a great journalist now. But it is a long recovery time. If Dennis can talk in 3 months, he'll be up, he'll be doing his broadcasting. Uh, he has been a radio artist for as long as I've been doing it, 30 years. I told him yesterday, we were doing some reminiscing, I first heard Dennis in 1989. So I, uh, I moved to California after the Reagan administration, and Dennis Prager was the invited guest of the Lincoln Club in Orange County. The Lincoln— there are many different kinds of Lincoln Club. The Lincoln Club of Orange County is a powerhouse in California. Buck Johns, Doy Henley— they invited Dennis Prager. And I'd gotten to know Tom Fuentes and Buck Johns and Doy Henley and a bunch of players in Orange County in the '90s. '89, and they invited me to a Lincoln Club lunch. And a guy named Dennis Prager shows up and blows me away with erudition, humor, presence, energy. He's not unlike Trump when it comes to energy. Dennis just is a huge life force. And I walked out of there not knowing that my life would be inextricably intertwined with Dennis for many years, but it has been. He's just a dear friend. And Dennis likes to always hug me because he knows I just hate being hugged. I'm not— I'm not a hugger. But I walked in yesterday and I planted a kiss on his head and he smiled broadly. And we had a chat about that. Only Dennis would get that from me and Sue, of course. And so he could have friends, the most interesting friends in the world, day in and day out there. But he does need his time. I left after an hour. The Fetching Mrs. Hewitt rule is 30 minutes to anyone who's sick. Don't go longer. They get exhausted. They don't want to be rude. And he likes people. That's all he wants. When are you coming back? I said, you tell me, I'll be back. And I'm just so happy that I can say on the New Year, he is every bit the dentist that we all knew. No listlessness. No, the sometimes recoveries lead people to losing energy. He has not lost any energy. His face is so mobile and expressive and he mouths words. I'm not so good at reading lips. It takes a while, but he does have a laser and he can point. It's just that it's going to take a while. And it was explained to me as a sort of imagine getting into shape. You got to get your diaphragm back into shape. When you've been on a ventilator, you've got to learn how to breathe again and you learn how to talk again. He'll be able to do that. That's going to be great. I want you to know, Marissa Street and all the people at PragerU will keep you posted.
