City Office Says Prattville Mayor Bill Gillespie Jr. Recovering in Montgomery Hospital

Prattville Mayor Bill Gillespie Jr. was reported to be recovering in a Montgomery hospital following a medical procedure, according to a Montgomery Advertiser story published Feb. 19, 2026. The Advertiser’s update did not name the Montgomery hospital or detail the procedure.

The Montgomery Advertiser item described the mayor’s condition as a recovery following a medical procedure but provided no timeline for discharge or return to official duties. The excerpted report ends before completing a sentence that begins “the mayor is receivi,” and the newspaper did not include quotes from the mayor, his family, or treating physicians in the excerpt supplied to this newsroom.

Background on local hospital quality appears in an earlier WSFA report from Aug. 13, 2024, which noted Prattville Baptist Hospital was one of only two hospitals in Alabama recognized by Healthgrades with a Patient Safety Excellence Award; the other Alabama recipient was Jack Hughston Memorial in Phenix City. The WSFA story reported that Healthgrades evaluated 4,500 hospitals nationwide to determine top performers for patient safety, and Prattville Baptist CEO Eric Morgan said the award validates hospital staff efforts.

Mayor Gillespie commented on Prattville Baptist’s recognition in the WSFA piece, saying, “You know, being a lifelong member of Prattville and seeing the evolution of Prattville Baptist here, I already knew what was reported here,” as published Aug. 13, 2024. That comment reflects Gillespie’s long-standing ties to the city’s health systems but does not connect him to the Montgomery hospitalization noted Feb. 19, 2026.

The WSFA material included a list of patient-safety items with percentage figures, in-hospital falls resulting in fracture (approximately 52% less likely), collapsed lung related to chest procedures (approximately 56% less likely), pressure sores acquired in the hospital (approximately 67% less likely), and catheter-related bloodstream infections (approximately 71% less likely), but the supplied excerpts did not supply the full methodological context for those percentages.

City Hall schedules, mayoral duties and any interim arrangements were not addressed in the Montgomery Advertiser excerpt. Residents seeking confirmation of the mayor’s condition or of any changes to Prattville municipal operations should await an official statement from the mayor’s office or the treating hospital; the Feb. 19, 2026 Advertiser update remains the only published report in the supplied material about the mayor’s hospitalization.