George H.W. Bush falls, breaks bone in neck

George H.W. Bush, the oldest living former U.S. president, fell at his summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine on Wednesday and broke a bone in his neck but was doing OK, a spokesman said.

Bush, 91, was hospitalized in stable condition and was doing "fine" after Wednesday's fall, spokesman Jim McGrath said. McGrath tweeted that the 41st president would be in a neck brace.

Bush was being treated at Portland's Maine Medical Center.

Bush, who has a form of Parkinson's disease that has him using a motorized scooter or wheelchair for mobility, has suffered a few other recent health setbacks. He was hospitalized in Houston in December for about a week for treatment of shortness of breath.

He spent Christmas 2012 in intensive care at the same Houston hospital while being treated for a bronchitis-related cough and other issues. He was discharged in January 2013 after a nearly two-month stay. During the winter, Bush and his wife, Barbara Bush, live in Houston.

Bush, a Republican, served two terms as Ronald Reagan's vice president before being elected president in 1988. After one term, highlighted by the 1991 Gulf War in Kuwait, he lost to Democrat Bill Clinton amid voters' concerns about the economy.

Bush is the father of Republican former President George W. Bush, and another Bush son, Republican former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, is running for president in 2016.

Bush previously served as a congressman, a U.N. ambassador, a U.S. envoy to China and director of the Central Intelligence Agency before becoming Reagan's running mate in 1980.

A Navy pilot during World War Two, he celebrated his 90th birthday on June 12, 2014, by skydiving in Maine, with the Army's Golden Knight parachute team.

He celebrated a low-key 91st birthday with his family at the Kennebunkport home on the Maine coast.

Wire services