August 27, 2024 • 26 mins
Dr. Benjamin Aaron knew about as much as the rest of the nation when he heard President Reagan had possibly been shot. What he would learn in the minutes that followed was that the situation was much worse than anyone else knew.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Scott VORDIEZ so much interest in this event on Thursday night.
This is the premiere of the movie Reagan, starring Dennis Quaid.
It is widely released to the nation on Friday. We
have an opportunity for you to see it on Thursday
night at the Marcus Majestic Theater. And I've got an
(00:20):
update announcement about this event coming up. At nine point
thirty this morning, we'll do a Fox News update the forecast.
The sponsorship of the forecast, we can't forget that is
very important. And then I will tell you that new
announcement about Thursday night's event and give you an opportunity
to win tickets. That's all coming up and about twenty
(00:43):
three minutes right here on news Radio eleven ten KFAB.
But let's take a moment here this morning to recognize
how much shorter this movie would be if not for
the actions of an incredible team of medical professionals in
Washington in DC on March thirtieth, nineteen eighty one, and
(01:04):
in the days that followed. That's the day when the
President of the United States was shot and wounded much
more seriously than we were led to believe by a
would be assassin in Washington, d C. He was taken
to the hospital where he met, among others, doctor Benjamin Aaron,
who joins us now. Doctor Aaron, thank you very much
(01:25):
for making the time for us here in Omaha. Good morning,
Good morning. What were you doing in the hours, the
long hours that led up to Rawhide and a bunch
of Secret Service agents suddenly crashing your hospital.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Well, it was sort of like a Mary Poppins sort
of thing. We were all occurrying on our business. I
was personally had been up some part of the night
with an emergency and operated in the morning, and had
just settled back at my desk in the early part
(02:03):
of the afternoon to you to catch up on messages
and look forward to my clinic, and all of a
sudden I heard over the radio. I always followed classical
music at that time, and I heard over the classical
(02:24):
music radio station, which was the most unusual announcement that
the President of the United States had been awesome, being
in an assassination attempt a few blocks from where we
were sitting. So I thought, wow, that's something else. And
(02:48):
then almost immediately I heard sirens coming down twenty third
Street there in DC, and a lot of siren r
and I thought, oh my gosh, they're coming to GW
Hospital and as George Washington University Hospital, and and I said, wow, uh,
(03:13):
this is probably gonna involve most of us more or
less like a mass casualty e dance, because the radio
had announced that anne of the people were injured, but
it was thought that the president had not been injured
(03:34):
at that moment in time.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Let's talk about that here. As you're there at George
Washington University Hospital, you're listening to you know, Taikowski or
or whatever on the classical radio they you know, and
then they they break in and say there was an
attempt to assassinate the president that's nearby at the Washington Hilton.
You hear the sirens and you see, I think they're
(03:56):
coming at us here at George Washington University Hospital. But
then you see, I don't know if you personally saw it,
but the world saw President Reagan walk into the hospital
waving the people, smiling, how's everyone doing? Good to see you.
I'm fine. And he walked into the hospital and it
was at that time now when he's away from the
(04:18):
public and the cameras, that's when he falls to a knee.
The world was not given any details about how serious
this injury was. How many details did you get before
you all had a chance to examine him.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I was not involved in that at all. That was
I was still in my office which was across the
street and of so many stories. But I got a
call almost immediately when the sirens kind of died down,
you know, doctor Aaron stapped to the emergency room. I thought, Hm, well,
(04:56):
the chances are this is going to be a mass
casual me situation, and they just wanted all hands on
deck in the er. And I did not have any
inkling about what the president's injuries might amount to at
any rate. He he had as as he told the
story to us later, he had gotten there. He had
(05:19):
a lot of pain in his chest, but he was
going to be you know, the the American h and
the American West. So he got up and he hit
the s trousers, got out of the out of his car,
hissed his trouser. He wanted to walk in, and he
there wasn't very far from where they were to the door.
(05:41):
He got about as far as the door and just
fell to a knee, and people were right there of course,
and grabbed him up, as I was later told, and
bundled him into the emergency room. He was not in
very good shape at that time, and they took his
(06:02):
blood pressure. He was eighty systolic and had almost no
deservable pulse, which man, of course, he had a very
low blood vyum.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
You learned that information, and you've got a team there,
of course, You've also you've got the Secret Service, and
you had all of the President's men. You're the chief
of thorascic surgery at George Washington University. How much conversation,
if any, was there as to whether they were going
to take care of him with you and your guys,
(06:37):
or are they going to bring in a team or
they were going to take him someplace else? How much
of any of that was there at that time, or
was it all right, we've got him now, let's get
underway here and it was time to get to work
to try and save his life.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Well, it was pretty much. It was very much the latter. Actually,
I got that call, and I'm it took me about
maybe four or five minutes to transit to the distance.
And when I got there, of course, I saw an
emergencing room just full of people, and it was obvious
(07:15):
that there were a lot of Secret Service people around,
and everything is very quiet and control. It was a
little bit of a surprise to me. But as I
walked into the emerging room area, one of the residents
surgical residence, grab Irons, had been the President has been
(07:35):
injured and they need your attention. So he quickly took
me back to the President's bay. They called in the
emergency room and there I As I walked in, I
looked off to the writing of the bay. In one day,
there was a person there with his head all spat
(07:57):
and bandages. It looked very bad to me, and that
was James Brady, I learned later. And there was a
crowd of people in this other bay, and as I
walked up, everybody opened up there and I had my
(08:17):
first sight of the President of the United States, who
was seen to be my personal patient.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
This was March thirtieth, nineteen eighty one. He had just
been sworn in as president just weeks earlier, and there
he is in front of you, the chief of thoracic surgery.
We're talking here with doctor Benjamin Aaron on news radio
eleven ten KFAB. This is at George Washington University. Some
minutes after the assassination attempt on President Reagan's life in
(08:49):
the vehicle, I think they threw him into the limousine
and transported him to the hospital. They didn't even know
in the vehicle whether he'd been shot, where he had
been shot, what had been going on. So what was
that initial assessment like on your part? And were you
in the room? There are two lines that President Reagan
(09:10):
is famous for saying. One is Mommy, I forgot to doc,
he said to his wife, the first Lady, Nancy Reagan.
And then when he removed his oxygen mask to make
a joke for those in the operating room, were you
there for that line?
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I looked there for both of those lines.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Yes, the latter line being I hope you're all Republicans.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Well after initial assessment in the er, my initial assistant.
You know, when I got there, they already had IVY
lines running and blood running, and there's blood running into
the bottle from his chess from a chest tube they
had in, so a lot of that had pretty much
(09:54):
been accomplished when I got there. They really worked quickly,
and his all signs were stable at the time, though
he was draining a considerable amount of blood out of
his chesture, which caught my attention. And Nancy Reagan, his wife,
had been notified of this. She was just down the
(10:16):
street some six or seven blocks in the White House,
and they rested her there, so she arrived quite soon
after that. And when after I'd made my assessment and
they said, what do you want to do about this?
I said, I think we need to take him to
the operating room because otherwise he's not going to do well.
There's too much blood coming out of this out of
(10:38):
his chest. He's still bleeding. And then as we took him,
what do you want to pick his journey into the
operating room. Of course, she was walking along with him,
and that's when he made the famous statement, Honey, I
guess I forgot the duck, and we were all it was.
(11:02):
It was a moment of considerable tension, as you might guess,
and it was interesting how that sort of relieved the
tension a little bit amongst all of us that were
at that moment in time very concerned for him.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Well, he had that line and then he removes his
oxygen mask and looks at you and your cohorts and says,
I hope you're all Republicans, and there was a very
famous reply.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Yeah, that that was that was that was really an
amazing event. We were He had been very stable up
until that point because they had a lot of fluids
running and he was being preostinated, prepared for to going
(11:50):
to sleep as his normal course of things. At Dan
sees you and his eyes are closed. He's lying very
quietly on the table. We're all there's a big hush
going on here. We got secret serf guys around the
perfect opering room. He got the team of surgeons and
assistance sort of circled at the foot of the bed
(12:14):
waiting for him to be go sleep, and it was
very dramatic. His eyes popped open. He looked around, he
kind of reared up on as much as he could
because he was tucked in, and looked around at us
and said, I sure hope you all are Republicans. And
(12:35):
I'll tell you what, that was a hoot. I mean
it just talk about a change in the tone of
the situation. Upering room. We were all standing there waiting
with baited breast to get on with this thing. And
he got up and said that that was just an
amazing event.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
It really was, and there was was it a coworker
of yours who responded to him.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Yes, the fellow who was the chief of at that time,
he was the chief surgeon of the emergency room, Joe
gior Donald, who later became chief of surgery at the hospital.
And Joe Gardonald's kind of interesting because he was like
(13:22):
a fifth generation Democrat and he had actually campaigned campaigned
against Reagan. He was pretty active in the local politics situation.
And he's the one that spoke of and said, for now,
mister President, we are all Republicans.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Talking here with doctor Benjamin Aaron for another few minutes. Here,
we've got the president there on the table. It's now
time to do this surgery. And that's where we had
a complication. Can you share those details with us please?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Well, initially on the oppering cable they did. We took
about five minutes. There was some question whether or not
the bullet had transitd his diaphragm, and that would involve
the stuff under his diaphragm, like his spleen in the
stomach and a few other organs in the abdomen. So
(14:17):
we considering he was stable, we considered it prudent to
do what we call the paris of tesis, and Jackson
fluid into the abdomen and with the return to see
whether or not there was any blood in his abdomen,
which there was not. About five minutes, it didn't take long,
and then we put him on the side, his right side,
(14:41):
and then he was all prepped that this all took
maybe ten minutes along the way when I opened his
chest on the left side and we were confronted by
a lot of blood in his chest. He had couple
of units of blood plodded in his chest as well
(15:05):
as of course we could see very readily there was
a hole and part of his lung and uh, and
so we knew with the quick assessment that uh, the
bullet had entered his lung, hit it hit the top
of the seventh rib and entered entered the lower the
(15:28):
lower lower his lung on the left and had transitd
that and stopped about maybe roughly an inch from his heart.
But that was that was some concern, but that at
that moment time it was it was a static situation.
(15:48):
I knew we had a lung that was injured and
that there was nothing else inside of his chest injured
that we could tell. Uh. One of the issues that
came up was that it was difficult to locate the
bullet in this spongy lung substance. The bullet was not
very big, and so it took us a little while.
(16:11):
There was some question about whether or not it was
worth spending a lot of time looking for the bullet,
because we all knew and the film of traumatology that
you don't always need to remove orgn ivory from the
lung if everything else is stable and the bleeding had
slowed that we did. There was no huge agency to
(16:38):
get that out if it took a lot of time.
But I was personally convinced that we were not going
to leave that bullet in his lung. I didn't think
it'd be a very good idea, of particular with the
potential for infection leader on. So anyway, it took a
little while, took about five, eight ten minutes to locate
the bullet.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Well, let me ask you something about your feeling there,
because you know, obviously you're concerned for every single patient
that comes through there. But this is the President of
the United States, and you're the cardiovascular surgeon performing this operation.
Did you at any point allow any thoughts of doubt
or concern as if things didn't go well, to affect
(17:21):
you or to creep into your brain. At that moment, Oh.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
That was. That was back in what I might call
the recesses of my brain. It was. It was an
interesting thing that when we were searching for the bullet,
and and at that moment in time, back in the
recess my brain, I could see a a large headline
(17:48):
on the paper, on the papers around the world next day,
surgeon leeds bullet in the president. That does not seem
like a very good thing to move towards. But there
was a good medical reason not to get that bullet,
because you know, the bullets go through cloth, that is
his clothes and enter a section of the body. They
(18:14):
take de breathe with it, and I was really concerned
for the infection that might ensue if we left the
bullet in. Anyway, it was worth spending the time to
find the bullet, which we did with a little strategy
and that sort of thing, And it was no big
task at that point because the bullet was very near
(18:35):
the other side of the lung.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Well, you did something at that time that was not
exactly medical in nature, as as I understand the story,
Doctor Aaron, you or someone stopped to say a prayer
at that point, is that correct?
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Well? I was mentally praying along the way to myself, saying,
you know, this is a salvageable situation. I sure hope
that nothing else occurs along the way. And when we
(19:13):
couldn't find the bullet, one of the things that had
occurred to me is the bullet was because the bleeding
that had come out of his lung was dark in color.
The inference was that this was pulonary arterial bleeding, and
the pulmonary arteries are pretty good sized vessels, and I
(19:36):
could see, as close as this was to the return
route to the heart, that this bullet might have slipped
into one of these large vessels. It was only a
couple inches away from the heart and had entered the
heart and perhaps even been transported by the heart beat
(20:01):
into some other part of his body. That would be
a bullet imbalist, so to speak. And it would have
been a frightful thing to deal with, and so that
was another reason that we were very concerned. We even
got an X ray on the table, a very quick
X ray to make sure that the bullet was still
(20:22):
in this lung, so that this to confirm that this
has not happened anyway. That was one of the fears.
There were a number of possibilities, but that was the
one that entered my mind as a reason why we
couldn't locate the bullet.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
You found it. You saved the president's life, he recovers,
he's released from the hospital after about a week and
a half. What were your checkups like if you were
the one who checked up on him, or if you
had any further conversations with him before he was released
about a week and a half later, what were those
those meetings like?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Well, every day, excuse me, every day in the in
that eleven year period, I of course was making rounds
on other patients, and he was the first one I
stopped at. And I would go into the presidential suite
(21:17):
because they'd commandeered an entire wing at the hospital, and
I would meet. I would go in and we had
two residents that had volunteered to stand twenty four hours
on and twenty four hours off to stay with him,
and I would convert. I would spend a little time
(21:39):
with them, and we'd go to the chart and I'd
go to the bits I knew them and the president
and we'd chat about his situation. I felt, but nothing,
nothing beyond that he was sently a patient type one
time and that I would go in and sit down
with Nancy Reagan for about forty five minutes while she
(21:59):
grilled me about how he was doing and what is
what the potential was following all this because he had
obligations down the road that he needed to attend, and
so I said, this is this is my pretty much
uh confining part of my day every day for that time.
(22:23):
And when we finally discerned and there were some there
were some rocky places along the way he had along
the way to develop the fever, and he had coughed
up some blood and I had I needed to do
a broncoscopy on him in the bed to make sure
that he hadn't cut loose started bleeding from something inside
of his lung along the way. These things we all
(22:46):
resolved as time went by. He did not have to
go back to the operating room, which was a great blessing.
And then after eleven days in the hospital he was
ready to go. He sent to the He had a
favorite sweater sort of a cardigan, and he sent out
(23:07):
to the White House and had them bring this cardigan down.
He went to leave the hospital on his feet with
that cardigan sweater on, his wife on his arm, surrounded
by all the staffs of the hospital and all and
everybody was very seemed very enthusiastic. Yeah, screamed and yelled
(23:28):
the presence going. But in their hearts they were saying,
I'm sure he's out of here, because he had totally
come and deer the basic operation of the hospital by
his presence there.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Yeah, through no fault of his own, certainly, exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
No phones.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Don wow, doctor, will you watch this movie about Reagan?
And do you know whether you know who plays you
in the movie?
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Uh? No, you know. I they told me who it was.
It was not anybody I recognized. And my part in
the movie was actually very limited, which was appropriate. There.
Gist of the movie was to portray this magnificent figure
(24:18):
of a man who was President the United States and
who was in serious trouble. And they wondered as they did, Sorry,
of course they did that there was not a great
(24:39):
time allowance for the drama of the injury itself.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Well you could do then you could do a whole
specialist on this episode. And I think that a top
Hollywood actor should play you, because if not for you
and your associates there at George Washington University Hospital, this
movie is about half as long, doctor Aaron. I appreciate
all the time you've given to us here this morning
(25:04):
on news radio eleven ten kfab to recount the story
that I know you told hundreds of times and it's
a fascinating chapter about an important figure in our modern
lives here in this country. And I'm looking forward to
this movie and I wish you the best there. I
know that you're in California this morning and anxious to
(25:26):
get back to to you know, taking a little a
few days off for you though you're retired, I know
you're very busy man, and you've given us a lot
of time today and we really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Well, you're very welcome, Scott. And I've seen the movie.
It's well worth the time, wonderful.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Well we're going to see it on Thursday, doctor Aaron.
Thank you so much. God bless you, sir, and have
a wonderful day.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
All right, Thank you, Scott, appreciate being with you. Scott
By mornings nine to eleven on news radio eleven ten
KF A b
Scott VORDIEZ so much interest in this event on Thursday night.
This is the premiere of the movie Reagan, starring Dennis Quaid.
It is widely released to the nation on Friday. We
have an opportunity for you to see it on Thursday
night at the Marcus Majestic Theater. And I've got an
(00:20):
update announcement about this event coming up. At nine point
thirty this morning, we'll do a Fox News update the forecast.
The sponsorship of the forecast, we can't forget that is
very important. And then I will tell you that new
announcement about Thursday night's event and give you an opportunity
to win tickets. That's all coming up and about twenty
(00:43):
three minutes right here on news Radio eleven ten KFAB.
But let's take a moment here this morning to recognize
how much shorter this movie would be if not for
the actions of an incredible team of medical professionals in
Washington in DC on March thirtieth, nineteen eighty one, and
(01:04):
in the days that followed. That's the day when the
President of the United States was shot and wounded much
more seriously than we were led to believe by a
would be assassin in Washington, d C. He was taken
to the hospital where he met, among others, doctor Benjamin Aaron,
who joins us now. Doctor Aaron, thank you very much
(01:25):
for making the time for us here in Omaha. Good morning,
Good morning. What were you doing in the hours, the
long hours that led up to Rawhide and a bunch
of Secret Service agents suddenly crashing your hospital.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Well, it was sort of like a Mary Poppins sort
of thing. We were all occurrying on our business. I
was personally had been up some part of the night
with an emergency and operated in the morning, and had
just settled back at my desk in the early part
(02:03):
of the afternoon to you to catch up on messages
and look forward to my clinic, and all of a
sudden I heard over the radio. I always followed classical
music at that time, and I heard over the classical
(02:24):
music radio station, which was the most unusual announcement that
the President of the United States had been awesome, being
in an assassination attempt a few blocks from where we
were sitting. So I thought, wow, that's something else. And
(02:48):
then almost immediately I heard sirens coming down twenty third
Street there in DC, and a lot of siren r
and I thought, oh my gosh, they're coming to GW
Hospital and as George Washington University Hospital, and and I said, wow, uh,
(03:13):
this is probably gonna involve most of us more or
less like a mass casualty e dance, because the radio
had announced that anne of the people were injured, but
it was thought that the president had not been injured
(03:34):
at that moment in time.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Let's talk about that here. As you're there at George
Washington University Hospital, you're listening to you know, Taikowski or
or whatever on the classical radio they you know, and
then they they break in and say there was an
attempt to assassinate the president that's nearby at the Washington Hilton.
You hear the sirens and you see, I think they're
(03:56):
coming at us here at George Washington University Hospital. But
then you see, I don't know if you personally saw it,
but the world saw President Reagan walk into the hospital
waving the people, smiling, how's everyone doing? Good to see you.
I'm fine. And he walked into the hospital and it
was at that time now when he's away from the
(04:18):
public and the cameras, that's when he falls to a knee.
The world was not given any details about how serious
this injury was. How many details did you get before
you all had a chance to examine him.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I was not involved in that at all. That was
I was still in my office which was across the
street and of so many stories. But I got a
call almost immediately when the sirens kind of died down,
you know, doctor Aaron stapped to the emergency room. I thought, Hm, well,
(04:56):
the chances are this is going to be a mass
casual me situation, and they just wanted all hands on
deck in the er. And I did not have any
inkling about what the president's injuries might amount to at
any rate. He he had as as he told the
story to us later, he had gotten there. He had
(05:19):
a lot of pain in his chest, but he was
going to be you know, the the American h and
the American West. So he got up and he hit
the s trousers, got out of the out of his car,
hissed his trouser. He wanted to walk in, and he
there wasn't very far from where they were to the door.
(05:41):
He got about as far as the door and just
fell to a knee, and people were right there of course,
and grabbed him up, as I was later told, and
bundled him into the emergency room. He was not in
very good shape at that time, and they took his
(06:02):
blood pressure. He was eighty systolic and had almost no
deservable pulse, which man, of course, he had a very
low blood vyum.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
You learned that information, and you've got a team there,
of course, You've also you've got the Secret Service, and
you had all of the President's men. You're the chief
of thorascic surgery at George Washington University. How much conversation,
if any, was there as to whether they were going
to take care of him with you and your guys,
(06:37):
or are they going to bring in a team or
they were going to take him someplace else? How much
of any of that was there at that time, or
was it all right, we've got him now, let's get
underway here and it was time to get to work
to try and save his life.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Well, it was pretty much. It was very much the latter. Actually,
I got that call, and I'm it took me about
maybe four or five minutes to transit to the distance.
And when I got there, of course, I saw an
emergencing room just full of people, and it was obvious
(07:15):
that there were a lot of Secret Service people around,
and everything is very quiet and control. It was a
little bit of a surprise to me. But as I
walked into the emerging room area, one of the residents
surgical residence, grab Irons, had been the President has been
(07:35):
injured and they need your attention. So he quickly took
me back to the President's bay. They called in the
emergency room and there I As I walked in, I
looked off to the writing of the bay. In one day,
there was a person there with his head all spat
(07:57):
and bandages. It looked very bad to me, and that
was James Brady, I learned later. And there was a
crowd of people in this other bay, and as I
walked up, everybody opened up there and I had my
(08:17):
first sight of the President of the United States, who
was seen to be my personal patient.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
This was March thirtieth, nineteen eighty one. He had just
been sworn in as president just weeks earlier, and there
he is in front of you, the chief of thoracic surgery.
We're talking here with doctor Benjamin Aaron on news radio
eleven ten KFAB. This is at George Washington University. Some
minutes after the assassination attempt on President Reagan's life in
(08:49):
the vehicle, I think they threw him into the limousine
and transported him to the hospital. They didn't even know
in the vehicle whether he'd been shot, where he had
been shot, what had been going on. So what was
that initial assessment like on your part? And were you
in the room? There are two lines that President Reagan
(09:10):
is famous for saying. One is Mommy, I forgot to doc,
he said to his wife, the first Lady, Nancy Reagan.
And then when he removed his oxygen mask to make
a joke for those in the operating room, were you
there for that line?
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I looked there for both of those lines.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Yes, the latter line being I hope you're all Republicans.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Well after initial assessment in the er, my initial assistant.
You know, when I got there, they already had IVY
lines running and blood running, and there's blood running into
the bottle from his chess from a chest tube they
had in, so a lot of that had pretty much
(09:54):
been accomplished when I got there. They really worked quickly,
and his all signs were stable at the time, though
he was draining a considerable amount of blood out of
his chesture, which caught my attention. And Nancy Reagan, his wife,
had been notified of this. She was just down the
(10:16):
street some six or seven blocks in the White House,
and they rested her there, so she arrived quite soon
after that. And when after I'd made my assessment and
they said, what do you want to do about this?
I said, I think we need to take him to
the operating room because otherwise he's not going to do well.
There's too much blood coming out of this out of
(10:38):
his chest. He's still bleeding. And then as we took him,
what do you want to pick his journey into the
operating room. Of course, she was walking along with him,
and that's when he made the famous statement, Honey, I
guess I forgot the duck, and we were all it was.
(11:02):
It was a moment of considerable tension, as you might guess,
and it was interesting how that sort of relieved the
tension a little bit amongst all of us that were
at that moment in time very concerned for him.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Well, he had that line and then he removes his
oxygen mask and looks at you and your cohorts and says,
I hope you're all Republicans, and there was a very
famous reply.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Yeah, that that was that was that was really an
amazing event. We were He had been very stable up
until that point because they had a lot of fluids
running and he was being preostinated, prepared for to going
(11:50):
to sleep as his normal course of things. At Dan
sees you and his eyes are closed. He's lying very
quietly on the table. We're all there's a big hush
going on here. We got secret serf guys around the
perfect opering room. He got the team of surgeons and
assistance sort of circled at the foot of the bed
(12:14):
waiting for him to be go sleep, and it was
very dramatic. His eyes popped open. He looked around, he
kind of reared up on as much as he could
because he was tucked in, and looked around at us
and said, I sure hope you all are Republicans. And
(12:35):
I'll tell you what, that was a hoot. I mean
it just talk about a change in the tone of
the situation. Upering room. We were all standing there waiting
with baited breast to get on with this thing. And
he got up and said that that was just an
amazing event.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
It really was, and there was was it a coworker
of yours who responded to him.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Yes, the fellow who was the chief of at that time,
he was the chief surgeon of the emergency room, Joe
gior Donald, who later became chief of surgery at the hospital.
And Joe Gardonald's kind of interesting because he was like
(13:22):
a fifth generation Democrat and he had actually campaigned campaigned
against Reagan. He was pretty active in the local politics situation.
And he's the one that spoke of and said, for now,
mister President, we are all Republicans.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Talking here with doctor Benjamin Aaron for another few minutes. Here,
we've got the president there on the table. It's now
time to do this surgery. And that's where we had
a complication. Can you share those details with us please?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Well, initially on the oppering cable they did. We took
about five minutes. There was some question whether or not
the bullet had transitd his diaphragm, and that would involve
the stuff under his diaphragm, like his spleen in the
stomach and a few other organs in the abdomen. So
(14:17):
we considering he was stable, we considered it prudent to
do what we call the paris of tesis, and Jackson
fluid into the abdomen and with the return to see
whether or not there was any blood in his abdomen,
which there was not. About five minutes, it didn't take long,
and then we put him on the side, his right side,
(14:41):
and then he was all prepped that this all took
maybe ten minutes along the way when I opened his
chest on the left side and we were confronted by
a lot of blood in his chest. He had couple
of units of blood plodded in his chest as well
(15:05):
as of course we could see very readily there was
a hole and part of his lung and uh, and
so we knew with the quick assessment that uh, the
bullet had entered his lung, hit it hit the top
of the seventh rib and entered entered the lower the
(15:28):
lower lower his lung on the left and had transitd
that and stopped about maybe roughly an inch from his heart.
But that was that was some concern, but that at
that moment time it was it was a static situation.
(15:48):
I knew we had a lung that was injured and
that there was nothing else inside of his chest injured
that we could tell. Uh. One of the issues that
came up was that it was difficult to locate the
bullet in this spongy lung substance. The bullet was not
very big, and so it took us a little while.
(16:11):
There was some question about whether or not it was
worth spending a lot of time looking for the bullet,
because we all knew and the film of traumatology that
you don't always need to remove orgn ivory from the
lung if everything else is stable and the bleeding had
slowed that we did. There was no huge agency to
(16:38):
get that out if it took a lot of time.
But I was personally convinced that we were not going
to leave that bullet in his lung. I didn't think
it'd be a very good idea, of particular with the
potential for infection leader on. So anyway, it took a
little while, took about five, eight ten minutes to locate
the bullet.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Well, let me ask you something about your feeling there,
because you know, obviously you're concerned for every single patient
that comes through there. But this is the President of
the United States, and you're the cardiovascular surgeon performing this operation.
Did you at any point allow any thoughts of doubt
or concern as if things didn't go well, to affect
(17:21):
you or to creep into your brain. At that moment, Oh.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
That was. That was back in what I might call
the recesses of my brain. It was. It was an
interesting thing that when we were searching for the bullet,
and and at that moment in time, back in the
recess my brain, I could see a a large headline
(17:48):
on the paper, on the papers around the world next day,
surgeon leeds bullet in the president. That does not seem
like a very good thing to move towards. But there
was a good medical reason not to get that bullet,
because you know, the bullets go through cloth, that is
his clothes and enter a section of the body. They
(18:14):
take de breathe with it, and I was really concerned
for the infection that might ensue if we left the
bullet in. Anyway, it was worth spending the time to
find the bullet, which we did with a little strategy
and that sort of thing, And it was no big
task at that point because the bullet was very near
(18:35):
the other side of the lung.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Well, you did something at that time that was not
exactly medical in nature, as as I understand the story,
Doctor Aaron, you or someone stopped to say a prayer
at that point, is that correct?
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Well? I was mentally praying along the way to myself, saying,
you know, this is a salvageable situation. I sure hope
that nothing else occurs along the way. And when we
(19:13):
couldn't find the bullet, one of the things that had
occurred to me is the bullet was because the bleeding
that had come out of his lung was dark in color.
The inference was that this was pulonary arterial bleeding, and
the pulmonary arteries are pretty good sized vessels, and I
(19:36):
could see, as close as this was to the return
route to the heart, that this bullet might have slipped
into one of these large vessels. It was only a
couple inches away from the heart and had entered the
heart and perhaps even been transported by the heart beat
(20:01):
into some other part of his body. That would be
a bullet imbalist, so to speak. And it would have
been a frightful thing to deal with, and so that
was another reason that we were very concerned. We even
got an X ray on the table, a very quick
X ray to make sure that the bullet was still
(20:22):
in this lung, so that this to confirm that this
has not happened anyway. That was one of the fears.
There were a number of possibilities, but that was the
one that entered my mind as a reason why we
couldn't locate the bullet.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
You found it. You saved the president's life, he recovers,
he's released from the hospital after about a week and
a half. What were your checkups like if you were
the one who checked up on him, or if you
had any further conversations with him before he was released
about a week and a half later, what were those
those meetings like?
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Well, every day, excuse me, every day in the in
that eleven year period, I of course was making rounds
on other patients, and he was the first one I
stopped at. And I would go into the presidential suite
(21:17):
because they'd commandeered an entire wing at the hospital, and
I would meet. I would go in and we had
two residents that had volunteered to stand twenty four hours
on and twenty four hours off to stay with him,
and I would convert. I would spend a little time
(21:39):
with them, and we'd go to the chart and I'd
go to the bits I knew them and the president
and we'd chat about his situation. I felt, but nothing,
nothing beyond that he was sently a patient type one
time and that I would go in and sit down
with Nancy Reagan for about forty five minutes while she
(21:59):
grilled me about how he was doing and what is
what the potential was following all this because he had
obligations down the road that he needed to attend, and
so I said, this is this is my pretty much
uh confining part of my day every day for that time.
(22:23):
And when we finally discerned and there were some there
were some rocky places along the way he had along
the way to develop the fever, and he had coughed
up some blood and I had I needed to do
a broncoscopy on him in the bed to make sure
that he hadn't cut loose started bleeding from something inside
of his lung along the way. These things we all
(22:46):
resolved as time went by. He did not have to
go back to the operating room, which was a great blessing.
And then after eleven days in the hospital he was
ready to go. He sent to the He had a
favorite sweater sort of a cardigan, and he sent out
(23:07):
to the White House and had them bring this cardigan down.
He went to leave the hospital on his feet with
that cardigan sweater on, his wife on his arm, surrounded
by all the staffs of the hospital and all and
everybody was very seemed very enthusiastic. Yeah, screamed and yelled
(23:28):
the presence going. But in their hearts they were saying,
I'm sure he's out of here, because he had totally
come and deer the basic operation of the hospital by
his presence there.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Yeah, through no fault of his own, certainly, exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
No phones.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Don wow, doctor, will you watch this movie about Reagan?
And do you know whether you know who plays you
in the movie?
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Uh? No, you know. I they told me who it was.
It was not anybody I recognized. And my part in
the movie was actually very limited, which was appropriate. There.
Gist of the movie was to portray this magnificent figure
(24:18):
of a man who was President the United States and
who was in serious trouble. And they wondered as they did, Sorry,
of course they did that there was not a great
(24:39):
time allowance for the drama of the injury itself.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Well you could do then you could do a whole
specialist on this episode. And I think that a top
Hollywood actor should play you, because if not for you
and your associates there at George Washington University Hospital, this
movie is about half as long, doctor Aaron. I appreciate
all the time you've given to us here this morning
(25:04):
on news radio eleven ten kfab to recount the story
that I know you told hundreds of times and it's
a fascinating chapter about an important figure in our modern
lives here in this country. And I'm looking forward to
this movie and I wish you the best there. I
know that you're in California this morning and anxious to
(25:26):
get back to to you know, taking a little a
few days off for you though you're retired, I know
you're very busy man, and you've given us a lot
of time today and we really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Well, you're very welcome, Scott. And I've seen the movie.
It's well worth the time, wonderful.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Well we're going to see it on Thursday, doctor Aaron.
Thank you so much. God bless you, sir, and have
a wonderful day.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
All right, Thank you, Scott, appreciate being with you. Scott
By mornings nine to eleven on news radio eleven ten
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