Doomsayer Harold Camping Suffers Stroke

Family Radio minster and high-profile doomsayer Harold Camping was hospitalized last week after suffering a stroke.

The Oakland Tribune reports that the 89-year-old radio host was rushed to the hospital on Thursday after a broadcast and that, while he survived, is struggling with his speech.

“He had a stroke, it was on his right side,” an unidentified neighbor told the paper. “His speech appears to be a little bit slurred but otherwise he’s OK. … [His wife] said he was doing good … and the only thing that’s affected is his speech.”

Camping was the focus of an intense media blitz last month in the lead-up to—and in the wake of—his May 21 prediction that the world was going to end.

Camping, whose Family Radio network reaches more than 60 U.S. stations as well as international affiliates, said he predicted the end of the world with the help of Bible verse. He claimed believers would be sent up to heaven as various time zones hit 6 p.m. on May 21, as the planet was engulfed by giant earthquakes and other disasters, until its final destruction Oct. 21.

After May 21 came and went without any sign of the Rapture, Camping reworked his biblical math and came to the conclusion that May 21 was only an “invisible judgment day” and that the actual end of the world will occur five months after he had been predicting.