Assemblyman Collins Hospitalized After Chest Pains

SACRAMENTO — Assemblyman B.T. Collins (R-Carmichael), a man who has served Democratic and Republican governors, suffered chest pains while at the Vietnam Wall in Washington on Thursday and was taken to Walter Reed Hospital for tests.

Collins, 52, who has a history of heart problems, was chief of staff to former Democratic Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr., and appointed to head the California Youth Authority by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson.

During the Mediterranean fruit fly scare of the early 1980s, when state Conservation Corps members said they would not pick fruit that had been sprayed with malathion, he publicly drank a glass of the diluted insecticide to demonstrate his belief that it posed no health threat.

Collins lost his right arm and leg in Vietnam while commanding a Green Beret unit on patrol in the Mekong Delta.

First elected to the Assembly in 1991 and reelected this month, he also led the campaign to obtain funds to build the Vietnam Memorial that is in Capitol Park.

A spokeswoman termed the chest pains “nothing serious,” but added that the Northern California lawmaker would remain in the hospital overnight for tests.