Rob Simmons was running in a special election in June of 1991 for the state House of Representatives when a Republican legislator came to town to help him campaign.

The legislator was Rep. M. Jodi Rell, R-Brookfield, a largely unknown entity in Simmons' hometown of Stonington. 

"I'd never met her," he said Monday night, after Rell had abruptly announced that she would not seek a second full term as governor.

Simmons said he warned Rell that they were about to campaign in Pawcatuck, a stronghold of union Democrats, but that the representative was undaunted. So on they marched, as a light rain started to fall.

"We worked our way down Williams Street, and it started to rain," Simmons said. "She was opening her umbrella, and she had a bunch of papers in the other hand, but she must have hit a crack in the sidewalk and she just went down."

Simmons dashed across the street as his wife, Heidi, also came to Rell's side.

"She was in a heap and had kind of knocked herself out a bit," he said.

After Rob and Heidi Simmons had helped Rell into their car, Simmons prepared to drive the state rep - now sporting a bloodied elbow and a broken nose - to Westerly Hospital.

But Rell said no.

"No, your wife can do that," Rell said, according to Simmons. "You keep campaigning."

And so he did. When Rell emerged from the ER several hours later, her nose set, Simmons said he insisted on driving her back to Brookfield.

Again, Rell refused: "She said, 'Oh no, you've got phone calls to make back at headquarters,'" Simmons recalled.

And so he did.

Simmons won the special election, and three races for the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming one of Rell's earliest endorsers for her run for governor in 2006. As Rell announced Monday that that one campaign for governor would be her last, Simmons reiterated his plans to challenge Sen. Chris Dodd in 2010, not seek to replace Rell in Hartford.

"Legislation is my strong point, and the challenges that we have at a national level, both with the military and the economy, are challenges for which I am uniquely qualified," Simmons said.

He chuckled at the memory of Rell's campaign performance and its aftermath. The future governor returned to her office in Hartford the following Monday sporting bandages and two black eyes, he said. "The people there said, 'That is a tough district.'"

"She’s a tough lady," Simmons said. "She served her community and her state very well and we are lucky to have had that service."