SANTIAGO, Chile - Gen. Augusto Pinochet, whose 17-year dictatorship carried out thousands of political killings, widespread torture and illegal jailings, clung to life in a Chilean hospital Sunday after suffering a heart attack and being administered last rites.

Just eight days earlier, the 91-year-old former strongman took full responsibility for the actions of his 1973-90 regime after long insisting any abuses were the fault of subordinates.

Pinochet underwent an emergency angioplasty to restore the flow of blood to his heart, and doctors described his condition as “serious but stable.” They planned to perform bypass surgery later in the day, state television reported.

“We are now in the hands of God and of the doctors. My father is in very bad condition,” Pinochet's younger son, Marco Antonio Pinochet, said at Gen. Luis Felipe Brieba Military Hospital.