Joan Kennedy suffers injuries in Boston

BOSTON, March 30 (UPI) -- The former wife of Sen. Ed Kennedy, D-Mass., was hospitalized Wednesday after a passerby found her unconscious on a Boston street.

Joan Kennedy, 68, was found before dawn Tuesday, the Boston Herald reported Wednesday. She was transported to Tufts New England Medical Center, where she was found to have suffered a concussion and several broken bones.

It was not immediately determined how she suffered the injuries, but later she was admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital, said the youngest of her three children, U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I.

"You want to make sure there's someone there for her all the time ... but at the same time you don't want to encroach on her privacy too much," Kennedy said.

"When things like this happen, it makes you feel as though maybe you should have done more to make sure there's someone with her 24/7 and perhaps that might become necessary."

He and his siblings were recently named their mother's temporary guardians, but a source close to the family said Patrick Kennedy might be named her permanent caretaker during an upcoming custody hearing.