Rawhide Down (42 page)

“We’re going to cut your clothes off”
:
The Saving of the President.

“I feel so bad,” Reagan said
: Interviews with Paul, Mitchell, Parr, and Hernandez.

Paul loosened the president’s tie
: Paul notes; interview with Paul.

“I’ve got a line!”
: Interviews with Hines and Paul. Hines said these words.

At first the technician
: Interview with Cyndi Hines, the technician, as well as interviews with Hernandez, Paul, and Koenig.

But his trousers wouldn’t budge
: Interview with Hernandez.

Wendy Koenig had helped cut away
: Interview with Koenig.

“
I can’t get a systolic pressure”
: Interview with Koenig.

“Oh, shit, try it again!”
: Interview with Mitchell.

“Set up a perimeter”
: Parr FBI and Secret Service reports.

Watching the nurses struggle
: Interview with Parr; Parr, “One Moment in Time,”
Guideposts
, March 1992.

8: The Trauma Bay

Agent George Opfer
: Interview with George Opfer.

The first lady immediately
: Nancy Reagan,
My Turn
, p. 3; interview with Sheila Patton.

The first lady’s next major
: Nancy Reagan’s monthly schedule, RRPL.

who sometimes received fan mail
: Interview with Opfer.

had led a team assigned
: Interview with John Simpson.

the supervisor told Opfer
: Guy Secret Service report.

as she walked toward him
: Interview with Opfer.

“There was a shooting”
: The dialogue and action in this section are derived from Nancy Reagan,
My Turn,
and an interview with Opfer.

With Opfer leading
: Interview with Opfer.

Opfer took his
: Interview with Opfer.

pulse was steady
: Pekkanen, “The Saving of the President”; interview with Tom Ruge.

to prevent anything “foolish”
: Abrams,
The President Has Been Shot
, pp. 232–33.

Ruge was determined
: Several doctors, including Joseph Giordano, Benjamin Aaron, and David Gens, commented on Ruge’s efforts to ensure that Reagan was treated like any other patient. Ruge also told his son, Tom, that one of the first things he told doctors and nurses was that he wanted Reagan to be treated like any other patient. “My dad was very clear that a big part of his job was to make sure that everything moved according to normal procedures,” Tom Ruge said. “He told me that when he went into the emergency room, he asked the staff, ‘If this was anyone else coming in with a gunshot wound, what is the first thing you’d do?’ They replied, and he said, ‘Then, that is what we are going to do.’”

Seeing Ruge, Deaver
: Transcript of interview of Deaver by Richard Darman, a top aide to James Baker (hereafter “Deaver transcript”). This interview was conducted the day after the shooting and is a detailed reconstruction of events from Deaver’s perspective. The presidential aide forgot he had this record in his possession until shortly before he died, according to Jeff Surrell, one of Deaver’s colleagues at Edelman, a public relations firm, and a collaborator on two of his books. Surrell and Amanda Deaver, the advisor’s daughter, provided me with this key record. Deaver told Surrell that Darman also interviewed Baker and Meese. However, none of these interview transcripts are at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Barrett excerpted a small portion of Deaver’s transcript in
Gambling with History
.

Deaver recalled
: Lou Cannon, “The Day of the Jackal in Washington,”
WP
, April 5, 1981, p. 1.

Realizing that providing
: Deaver transcript.

An assistant picked up
: Deaver transcript; the assistant is Margaret Tutwiler; interview with Tutwiler.

“Find Jim,” Deaver said
: Deaver transcript.

“Do you know the name”
: Deaver,
Behind the Scenes
, p. 19.

Reagan’s systolic blood pressure
: Interview with Koenig.

indicated that he was in shock
: There is some debate about whether Reagan was in shock or near shock. Dr. David Gens and Dr. Joseph Giordano, who treated Reagan, believe he was in shock. So do several outside experts whom I interviewed, including Dr. Donald Trunkey and Dr. Howard Champion, two of the country’s most respected trauma surgeons.

Only five or six minutes
: Interviews with doctors, nurses, and Secret Service agents.

Joyce Mitchell, the ER doctor
: Interview with Mitchell.

“O positive,” Parr replied
: Interview with Parr.

One of the first to arrive
: Interview with Dr. William O’Neill.

“Who’s the patient?” Price asked
: Interview with Dr. G. Wesley Price; Kim Darden, “Highpoint Native First to Examine Reagan,”
Highpoint Enterprise
, April 6, p. 1A.

As he entered the room
: Interview with Price;
The Saving of the President
.

“I can’t breathe,” the president
: G. Wesley Price, “An Eyewitness Account by the First Doctor to Get to the President,”
Washingtonian
, August 1981.

“I don’t hear very good”
:
The Saving of the President
.

Price noticed
: Interview with Price.

about five inches
: Interview with Gens.

As he did, Drew Scheele
: Interview with Dr. Drew Scheele.

Price nodded
: Interview with Price.

“Everything is going to be okay”
: Pekkanen, “The Saving of the President.”

Price had treated
: Interview with Price.

Ed Meese had been
: Craig Fuller memo; Richard Williamson memo; Deaver transcript; interviews with Baker, Tutwiler, and Williamson.

“He’s taken a shot in the back”
: Deaver transcript.

“Shit,” said Baker
: Interview with Baker.

Baker jotted “P hit/fighting”
: Interview with Baker; Barrett,
Gambling with History
, p. 113.

Lyn Nofziger, one of Reagan’s
: Interview with Williamson.

“It looks quite serious,” Baker added
: Haig,
Caveat
, p. 151.

“I’ll be in touch with”
: Transcript of Baker’s press conference, March 31, 1981, RRPL. Once at the hospital, Baker and Haig spoke by phone and agreed that the secretary of state would be “the point of contact” for information flowing between the White House and the hospital. There are many conflicting accounts of when and how top White House officials learned about the shooting, and even when Baker and his team left the White House. Some press accounts reported that Haig arrived at the White House before Baker left for the hospital. However, this is impossible. Allen witnessed Meese and Baker leaving for the hospital; he then saw Haig arrive. According to his memoirs, Haig left the State Department at 2:59 p.m.—about the same time that Baker would have seen Reagan being wheeled into surgery.

“
You want four units”
: Interview with Gens. According to medical records, this was actually four units of “packed red blood cells,” a component of blood. A unit of packed red blood cells is about 320 milliliters. Doctors commonly refer to packed red blood cells as blood.

second shooting victim
: This patient is James Brady. In the interest of narrative clarity, I describe his arrival at the hospital in the next chapter.

Approximately seven minutes
: Interview with Gens; chronology provided to the author by Dr. Benjamin Aaron, who reviewed Reagan’s entire medical file at my request. The chest tube was put in at about 2:40 p.m., according to Aaron’s time line. Dr. Joseph Giordano believes he was in the ER for about three minutes before inserting the tube. At this moment, Giordano is about to arrive in the ER.

9: STAT to the ER

Dr. Joseph Giordano leaned
: Interview with Joseph Giordano.

a backwater by the medical establishment
: I relied on interviews with Dr. Donald Trunkey and Dr. David Boyd, as well as numerous articles in medical journals, in describing the history and evolution of trauma care; “Accidental Death and Disability: The Neglected Disease of Modern Society,” National Academy of Sciences, September 1966.

As Giordano discovered, GW
: Interviews with Giordano and Craig DeAtley.

R Adams Cowley, an innovative surgeon
: In describing Shock Trauma, I relied on interviews with doctors who worked there, as well as stories in the
Baltimore Sun
, the
Baltimore Evening Sun
, and Jon Franklin and Alan Doelp’s
Shocktrauma
.

by having maintenance
: Interview with DeAtley.

Within two years
: Interviews with various doctors and nurses at GW.

In 1979 the District of Columbia’s
: B. D. Colen, “City Names Adult Trauma Unit for Patients Lifted by Copter,”
WP
, September 1, 1979, p. C2.

Just after 2:35 p.m.
: Interviews with Giordano and Gens.

“How are you doing”:
Interview with Giordano.

Giordano felt
: Interview with Giordano; Giordano narrative; Giordano, “Doctor’s Story: A Delay Could Have Been Fatal,”
LAT
, April 4, 1981, p. 1.