Doctors speaking at Vice President Kamala Harris’ rally did not ignore a person in medical distress

Did doctors at Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign rally ignore a medical emergency that happened right in front of them? No, despite viral social media posts that claim otherwise. 

The posts said a group of doctors who took the stage at Harris’ Oct. 25 Houston rally to advocate for abortion access declined to help when a medical emergency unfolded during the Democratic presidential nominee’s event. 

Rogan O’Handley, a conservative who uses the handle DC_Draino, shared the claim in an Oct. 26 Instagram post. He was resharing an Oct. 26 X post from Joey Mannarino, a conservative political commentator.

Harris "brought up all these doctors to say how much they love and support abortion," Mannarino’s post read. "Someone in the crowd had a medical emergency and called for medics. Not one of the abortion doctors helped them." 

This claim also circulated on TikTok and was mischaracterized by The Daily Caller, a conservative website, which wrote the headline, "Kamala’s abortion doctors appear to pass the buck as rally-goer suffers medical emergency, video shows."

The Instagram post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

(Screenshot from Instagram)

On the day of the rally, the Houston Chronicle reported that the city’s weather was warmer than average, with temperatures in the mid-80s as thousands of people lined up outside Shell Energy Stadium, where Harris was set to appear with singers Beyoncé and Willie Nelson. 

Although rally staff and police provided water and ice packs throughout the day, and cooling buses were present, KPRC-TV, a local news station, reported that emergency medical technicians responded to dozens of people who had heat-related symptoms and at least eight people were taken to nearby hospitals. Around 4 p.m. CDT, the Houston Fire Department encouraged rallygoers to "practice heat safety."

If you're getting overheated and need a place to cool off, @METROHouston has a cooling bus at Capitol & St. Emanuel. There is another cooling bus from @SETRAC_TX at Rusk & St. Emanuel.

— Houston Fire Dept (@HoustonFire) October 25, 2024

Video of the rally shows that the social media posts mischaracterized how the events unfolded once the rally in the open-air stadium was underway.

A group of people in white coats took the stage and a man who introduced himself as Dr. Todd Ivey, a practicing obstetrician and gynecologist in Houston stepped to the lectern.  

"We became doctors to take care of people, and when Donald Trump’s Supreme Court justices overturned Roe v. Wade, and unleashed the extreme abortion bans across our country, I could not believe what was happening," Ivey said, referring to the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended federally protected abortion access.

Ivey criticized Texas laws that prevent access to what he described as "basic, essential medical care." 

About 2 minutes and 30 seconds into Ivey’s speech, voices from the crowd called out. Initially, the words were inaudible and interspersed with people booing the abortion access limitations Ivey described. 

About three minutes into Ivey’s speech, someone yelled what sounded like, "Help! Medic!" At that point, Ivey paused. 

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"I think someone needs some medical assistance over here," he said into the microphone, pointing into the crowd. Someone who appeared to be wearing a white coat darted behind Ivey and the other doctors onstage. 

That person moved out of the camera’s view, and the crowd began to cheer. 

It’s unclear what happened off camera, but Ivey asked, "Did they get someone — are they getting someone?" Another person off camera responded: "They’re OK." 

"OK, great," Ivey said, and the crowd cheered. Before he could resume his speech, however, someone else in the crowd caught his attention. He paused again, pointing in a different direction and asking, "Medical assistance?" Someone replied, "We’re good."

"You’re good," he repeated, and returned to his remarks. 

The incident lasted just more than a minute. 

Video footage showed that Ivey stopped, called attention to the need for help and waited until he was certain the person in distress had been helped. 

We contacted Harris’ campaign for comment on this episode and received no response. We also emailed and called Ivey but couldn’t reach him before publication. 

The Houston Fire Department said it had no record of the rally incident and said Advantage Ambulance, a private contractor that provides emergency medical services, handled patient contacts inside the venue. Advantage Ambulance declined to comment. 

We rate claims that none of the doctors at Harris’ Oct. 25 Houston rally helped a person experiencing a medical emergency False.

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.