At age 95, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter fell and injured his head/eye, receiving 14 stitches, and the following day, he helped build houses for Habitat for Humanity.
The injury occurred on Oct. 6, 2019, newspaper archives showed.
Following former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s death in late December 2024, a rumor about him supposedly volunteering with Habitat for Humanity at age 95 while visibly injured from an accidental fall recirculated online.
For years, liberal social media users have shared photographs or videos supposedly depicting Carter at the gig with what appears to be an eye injury, apparently to emphasize that his age and medical history hadn’t stopped him from volunteering. A Dec. 31, 2024, Reddit post (archived) claimed:
At age 95, Jimmy Carter fell at home requiring 14 stitches. Despite his injuries, he showed up the next day, to help build houses for the Habitat for Humanity.
(Reddit user @Mint_Perspective)
A reverse image search revealed numerous instances of people making the claim that Carter, at age 95, fell, received stitches and then the following day helped build houses for Habitat for Humanity — a Christian nonprofit group that helps low-income families build homes and pay their mortgages.
The claim was true. On Oct. 7, 2019, The Associated Press published the photographs featured in the social media posts, writing:
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — With a bandage above his left eye and a large, red welt below it, former President Jimmy Carter was greeted by a cheering crowd Monday morning as he prepared to help build a home with Habitat for Humanity in Nashville.
Carter fell at home on Sunday, requiring 14 stiches, but he did not let his injuries keep him from participating in his 36th building project with the nonprofit Christian housing organization. He turned 95 last Tuesday, becoming the first U.S. president to reach that milestone.
The newspaper reported he and his wife, former first lady Rosalynn Carter, who died in November 2023, worked that day on building a home’s corbels, a type of support bracket.
CNN also reported on the public appearance, including the following quote from the former president: “I fell down and hit my forehead on a sharp edge and had to go to the hospital. And they took 14 stitches in my forehead and my eye is black, as you’ve noticed,” he said. “But I had a No. 1 priority and that was to come to Nashville and build houses.”
According to the nonprofit’s website, the couple formed a partnership with Habitat for Humanity in the 1980s and have supposedly rallied “thousands of volunteers and even celebrities” to join the organization over the decades.
Interested in presidential trivia? We combed our archives to compile exclusive stories regarding presidents’ pets, drinking, alleged extramarital affairs, purported after-death hauntings of the White House and more. They are listed in order of presidential term here and include the following nuggets of information about Carter: