Marcy Kaptur

WASHINGTON —U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur rolled onto the House floor in a wheelchair on Wednesday to cast votes, six weeks after a stolen car slammed at 70 mph into the vehicle driving her to a Toledo church event, mangling the front ends of both vehicles.

The 80-year-old Toledo Democrat, the longest-serving woman in the history of Congress, is walking again, gardening again and back to her signature rapid-fire pace through interviews. But she’s still using leg braces, doing physical therapy to restore damaged ligaments, and adjusting to lasting effects of the crash.

Though the car’s airbag and seatbelt saved her life, they also left her bruised. Powder from the airbag went into her lungs, and her face had “prickers” on it from the airbag during her first week in the hospital, she said in an interview this week.

“My brain never really went out of commission, so I worked from the hospitals,” she said. The hospital and rehab stay also brought a steady stream of visitors, cards and flowers from constituents and neighbors, along with a backlog of letters to answer, Kaptur recalls.

The crash happened Aug. 2 in the 3200 block of North Detroit Avenue in Toledo, according to Toledo Police. Kaptur was a passenger in a Ford Bronco driven by her staffer, Kegan Zimmerman, when a stolen Nissan Altima hydroplaned through a puddle and struck their vehicle, police said.

“It looked just like a cruise missile,” Kaptur said of the gray Nissan’s sloped nose. “It was instantaneous. It happened so fast.”

The driver fled on foot and was picked up a few minutes later by a waiting car, according to Kaptur’s account. She hypothesizes that the car was on its way to a chop shop as part of a stolen car ring.

Toledo Police last week identified the driver as Jahiem D. Wright, 23, and issued warrants for two counts of aggravated vehicular assault and one count of failure to stop after an accident, according to a Sept. 1 police statement. Wright has not been arrested.

Kaptur spent a week at Mercy St. Vincent’s Hospital in Toledo followed by weeks of inpatient rehab. She suffered ligament damage in her right leg and both wrists; injuries she said take a long time to heal because ligaments lack the blood supply that speeds recovery.

She used a wheelchair on the House floor this week to protect her healing leg, she said, even as she resumes a full campaign and work schedule. She missed just one week of votes.

The crash came during August’s county fair season, forcing her to forgo regular campaign-trail stops. But she said she had already visited most of the counties in her redrawn district, including the new ones added under this year’s map. She did not think the weeks she spent laid up hurt her re-election prospects.

“We have been going out, now, to events,” Kaptur said. “I just take it carefully.”

The crash landed in the middle of what was already shaping up as the toughest re-election fight of Kaptur’s 43-year career.

Ohio’s Republican-drawn congressional map, adopted last October, pushed her 9th District from a seat Donald Trump carried by 6.5 points to one he carried by more than 10 points. It now includes Paulding, Putnam, and Henry counties, three of the state’s most Republican areas. No other Democrat in Congress represents a district that favors the opposing party by as wide a margin, the National Republican Congressional Committee says.

She faces a rematch against former state Rep. Derek Merrin, who came within 2 percentage points of beating her in 2024.