A state senator and her husband were injured this weekend in an accident at their home in West Des Moines. According to G.O.P. staff, State Senator Pat Ward and her husband were cleaning up storm damage when the accident happened. Ward’s husband fell off a ladder and onto his wife, the state senator,  fracturing her lower back.

John Ward punctured his lung in the fall. Pat Ward was first elected to the senate in 2004. In 2009, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Ward and her husband are being treated in a Des Moines hospital. She faces a Republican primary challenge in June for her senate seat.

Ward issued a statement, saying she and her husband expect to be released from the hospital today or tomorrow (Monday or Tuesday). She described the compression fracture in her lower back as “minor,” it will not require surgery, and said her husband had a partially collapsed lung and several fractured ribs.