by Allen Childs
I experienced a tremendous rush of adrenaline and a flushed feeling throughout my body. As I turned around, I immediately saw the chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology and the operating room nurse supervisor and informed them. Dr. Marion Jenkins said, “I will go up to the operating room and bring down an anesthesia machine,” and Ms. Bell said she would get the operating room ready. At that point I assumed that the president had been shot in a crowd and would undergo emergency surgery.
George Mekker, MD
In 1963 I started a general surgery residency with several other Ohio State classmates, namely Irwin Thal, MD, Harlan Pollock, MD, and William Rae, MD
On November 22, 1963 I was on an anesthesiology rotation. At about midday I joined a group watching surgical movies monitored by Dr. Robert McClelland, professor of surgery I was late so I sat next to Dr. McClelland by the projector. Suddenly, Dr. Malcolm Perry, professor of surgery, entered the room, and softly, I overheard him say to McClelland, “The president’s been shot and they’re bringing him here.” They exited and I followed.
Robert McClelland, MD
(oral history courtesy of the Sixth Floor Museum)
And there were a lot of interesting coincidences about my relationship with this Kennedy assassination.
It almost makes you think about—what is it?—the union synchronicity about how things seem to be associated, only they’re not really associated and (these are) odd coincidences. And the first of them was in 1961. I think it was the fall when Rayburn [at the time the Speaker of the US House of Representatives] was here. My wife was taking care of him over at Baylor. She was working at Baylor at that time, and she was amused because they were always quoting what Sam had said in the paper. Sam was comatose virtually all the time that he was there [chuckling]. He never said anything to anybody, and yet he was apparently quoted fairly liberally on the TV and in the press and whatnot.
Because one day my wife said, “You know, I forgot to pick up my check at Baylor.” And so, I was getting off early at Parkland that day. She said, “Would you drive over and pick it up?” And as I said, we were living over on Lipscomb, just off of Gaston at that time. So, I said, “Yeah, I’ll pick it up on the way home.”
And so I drove by over there, and I drove into the old Gaston Hospital parking lot and parked my little beat-up Volkswagen, and got out and was walking across the street . . . it must have been about three or four in the afternoon, something like that. And I was walking toward the side door of Baylor, which at that time had a side door, and there was a street there which is no longer there. And I noticed a bunch of children running out of that school that was next door to it. It was a . . . I think now it’s some kind of medical magnate school, but then it was a grade school. So, it looked like a bunch of third or fourth graders were all excited and were running down the street toward Baylor. I thought, “Huh,” you know, “what’s that?” And then about that same time, around the corner there on Washington . . . was it Washington or ? . . . anyway, the street that comes right down toward Baylor, they turned onto Gaston about three or four Cadillac limousines and a bunch of motorcycle cops and whatnot, and I thought, “Well, that’s interesting. I wonder who that is?” And this, you know, cortege of cars pulled up and pulled up to the side door and the lead limousine parked and by this time, I was probably less than the distance from here to . . . in fact, about half the distance from that thing (indicating something off-camera) and here to the rear door, which was opened by one of the motorcycle cops, and who should step out but John Kennedy. And I thought, “Well, how ‘bout that, you know.” [chuckling] “And I literally could have kind of leaned over and leaned out and touched him. Of course, they’d have shot me if I did that, but . . . [laughing] And I didn’t do that, but I thought about that later. Now, what were the odds of me being what . . . doing what I was doing two years later and having been one out of several million people who could have been there to see him. Only, you know . . . there was no connection, but there was a connection, and the synchronicity sort of thing.
And another odd coincidence, just while I’m on that subject, is that the day he was assassinated, my wife had our two children at the time at the pediatrician’s which was over in the Turtle Creek area of Dallas, so it was right by where they were coming by. So, the lady in the doctor’s office . . . the receptionist told them, “Oh, the president’s coming by here.” So everybody went outside, and Connie was standing there holding our two children, and she almost could have leaned out and touched them. So, my wife saw them when they came back, and then thirty minutes later, I was helping take care of him.
And then two years after that, one of my friends who’s . . . was it two or three years after? . . . anyway, some time after that, one of my friends said, “I’ve had a problem with a patient of mine that I did a gastrectomy on, and I wonder if I could get you to come over and see him for me. And I think we’re going to have to operate on him because he’s got some kind of complication.” And I said, “Well, sure.” It was over at Presbyterian. The patient was Mr. Zapruder.” [smiling] [Zapruder is famous to this day because of his footage of the assassination itself.]
I was in a little conference room in the operating room, and I was showing a movie. I even remember what movie it was, about how to repair a hiatal hernia, to some of the residents. So, we had the movie projector going, and I heard this little knock on the door. And I went over to it and kind of opened the door, you know, and so Chuck was there. He was a resident at that time, and he said, “Come out here. I need to tell you something real important.” And so, he told me. He said, “They’re bringing the president in. He’s been shot, and they want everybody to come downstairs.” I said, “Well, OK.” You know, so, I stuck my head back in the door and told one of the other residents, you know, to go on with showing the movie. I’d be back up, probably, shortly. And so, there was an elevator that went right down into the emergency room at that time, and so Dr. Crenshaw and I rode down into that, and we got off into the main part of the emergency room then, walked around the corner, and in the meantime, as we were coming down, I was telling Chuck, I said, “Well, you know, Chuck, this is probably nothing. We’re always getting these rumors, you know, like some plane just crashed out at Love Field, and it turns out that somebody tripped and . . . you know, [chuckling] and it’s magnified out of all proportion. And that’s probably. . . .” “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. So, we continued on around into the main area of the pit, as we called it, and saw this huge crowd of people there, and as we went on back towards the back . . . I thought, Well, something’s going on here. And then the crowd parted enough that I saw Mrs. Kennedy sitting there on a chair in that famous pink suit, and I thought, “Oh my God.”
Chapter 4
“THE PIT”
In 1963, the emergency room at Parkland Hospital treated an average of 272 emergency cases a day. Every student practiced his or her skills there—stitching up trauma victims, delivering precipitously born babies, setting fractures, and diagnosing bipolar disorders. Saturday nights were especially peppered by gunshot wounds, giving students the impression that war was endemic in the streets of Dallas.
The emergency entrance was at the back of hospital, where an ambulance ramp led to double swinging doors opening into a thirty-foot corridor. This passage emptied directly into “The Pit,” the draconian name for the Parkland ER.
The ER’s surgery section had eight booths for examination and treatment, and four emergency operating rooms. Two of these, Trauma Room 1 and Trauma Room 2, were especially equipped for the most seriously injured. Many students, residents, and interns were in the hallways leading to Trauma Room 1, and in this chapter, they recall how they came to be so close to the unfolding tragedy, what they saw, and how they felt.
Ron Jones, MD
(oral history courtesy of the Sixth Floor Museum)
We would usually see about, as I recall, about a thousand gunshot wounds and a thousand stab wounds a year and about five thousand auto
mobile accident victims a year in the emergency room. The emergency room at Parkland was very busy. Well over 100,000 to 125,000 visits a year at that time. All of us had seen well over 100 or 200 gunshot wounds by the time we had completed a residency, and so that was not something that was new to us or was particularly disturbing to us.
Leslie Moore, MD
If the answer was accurate, I knew they would be taking him [the president] to Parkland, so my wife and I got up from our table immediately and headed out an exit door. No one else was visible in the parking lot; all seemed to have remained inside the building. We jumped in my VW beetle and headed over to Parkland. There was little traffic congestion as of yet and we pulled up to a side door to the Parkland library area. Already, there was a policeman guarding the door and he said I was not allowed in. I told him I was a doctor and had to get in and he acquiesced. I went down to the ER and a crowd was gathering, doctors, nurses, orderlies, Secret Service, and others. After a number of minutes, one of our professors, Fouad Bashour, MD, emerged from the trauma room (which was no more than fifteen feet away just around the corner) shaking his head and saying, “He’s dead.” Just those two words and that was it.
I went out of the ER to the emergency entrance and there was the limousine splattered with blood and there was a considerable amount of the president’s blood on the sidewalk. Jackie Kennedy had been in the ER with her pink suit showing quite a bit of blood. I never saw her again.
Rumors began circulating in and around the ER that Vice President Lyndon Johnson, who had a history of more than one heart attack, was heading back to the emergency room with severe chest pains. Everyone was ready for whatever might come of this but apparently, it turned out to be just hearsay.
Robert Duchouquette, MD
I immediately made a u-turn and followed the limo to Parkland’s ER. I entered the emergency entrance shortly after he was transferred to the largest ER trauma treatment room. In the confusion of others in scrubs, albeit mine were OB greens, I was witness to the frenzied resuscitative efforts displayed by the chiefs of all trauma-related services who had been called to the scene. As soon as he was placed from the gurney onto the emergency table, it was obvious from his ghastly head wound that he was DOA, and regardless of all the impressive medical acumen and experience present, there was no hope of restoring his life. He was flatlined from the onset. However, the official word went out that physicians were working toward that end, and it was erroneously reported by the press that he was alive for thirty-five minutes after his fatal wound.
This delay in the announcement of his death was obviously used to secret Lyndon B. Johnson away on Air Force One, now vaulted into the presidency by this terrible act. Several minutes later, a Secret Service agent asked what my function was in the resuscitative efforts, and I had to admit it was “observation.” Thus ended my visit with the president.
Ronald O. Wyatt, MD
The first memory of that day, I was on my internal medicine rotation at Parkland Hospital. That morning was the day Dr. Selden questioned the medical students. A trying event! It was later in the morning when someone looked out the window as President Kennedy’s entourage was passing by Parkland Hospital from Love Field on Harry Hines Boulevard. He was going downtown for a parade; I remember everyone in the class watching.
After being dismissed from class I took the elevator to the first floor to go to the cafeteria for lunch. Walking down the hall a nurse came by me and was crying. I stopped her and asked why she was crying. She said, “The president has been shot and is in the emergency room!” I couldn’t believe it. I thus took some back steps to the ER. When I got there the door was blocked by the police and not allowing anyone in.
I then went to x-ray which had a door leading to the ER. I just stood there and watched in disbelief. As I looked, Mrs. Kennedy was brought into ER by the Secret Service. She was covered with blood. I then left. I remember the press, TV, etc. was at the hospital almost immediately with TV cameras, newspeople, cables running down hallways, etc. Med school was dismissed and I went home depressed.
John Heard, MD
I was in the cafeteria when over the PA system came the call for the heads of departments by name asap to the ER. Very strange. I went out of the cafeteria down the back stairs and opened the door to the ER hallway. A man with a gun spun toward me, looked me over carefully, and continued down the hall. Right behind him was Kennedy on a stretcher followed by Jackie in her pink, blood stained suit. Her face is what I remember most. I closed the door in shock and, being a good SW med student, went to take my pathology exam. They told us all to go home.
Abram “Chic” Eisenstein, MD
Two or three of our (freshman) class were stopped at the corner of Inwood and Lemon (trying to get to Kip’s for lunch) by a motorcade which we then found out was Kennedy’s. I am not sure we even knew he was coming to town—hey, we were sweating Gross Anatomy! After eating our burgers we went back to the school and as I was parking, someone yelled Kennedy had been shot and was coming to Parkland. We ran from the parking lot to the ER and got in before he arrived and the place was closed down. We hid in the hallway just watching. The stretcher came in with Jackie and then into surgery ER. Connally and LBJ followed.
Finally, we were told to leave and walked out into the driveway in front of the ER. I stayed there for what seemed like hours. The eerie thing was someone had a radio broadcasting from the national station’s hook up. We knew how things really were thirty minutes before they were broadcast publicly. We saw the priest come in. We watched a poor Latino couple (she was pregnant) pull up to go to delivery. The SS guys grabbed the car and moments later four or five agents covering LBJ ran out of the ER and took the car to Love Field. I kept saying to myself that this was real, yet unbelievable! No cell phone to take pictures! I grabbed a small branch from a tree over me and kept it for years.
Larry Dossey, MD
I was a first-year medical student at UT Southwestern in November 1963. A couple of my classmates and I had driven to a nearby eatery for lunch, and on returning to the medical school heard on the car radio that President Kennedy had been shot and had been rushed to Parkland Hospital.
Eager to know what was happening, I dashed into Parkland via the emergency room entrance amid unbelievable chaos. The ER entry area was packed and the din was indescribable, with people pushing and shouting at top volume. Suddenly a gentleman in coat and tie grabbed me by my arm. He introduced himself as Robert Pierpoint, the CBS News correspondent who was traveling with the presidential party. I recognized Pierpoint; he was nationally known, frequently appearing on CBS television evening news. He said to me with unmistakable urgency, “Can you help me?” Pierpoint had managed to capture one of the few pay telephones in the Parkland ER, and he was hanging onto it for dear life. On the other end of the line was the CBS office in New York City. “Will you guard this phone while I find out what’s going on with the president?” he implored. I said yes. Then Pierpoint pushed his way down the hall to Trauma Room 1. While he was doing so, I was asked by the CBS people in New York what I could observe from my vantage point. I described the chaos as best I could. Then Pierpoint returned, took the phone, and provided the information he’d obtained in Trauma Room 1. He and I kept the telephone trading going for an hour or so.
Finally Pierpoint told the CBS office that the president was dead. I was unable to comprehend it. Pierpoint was obviously stricken with grief and disbelief. He simply said to me tearfully, “Thank you for your help.” For a moment we just stood there looking at each other, realizing we were participants in a drama we could not grasp, but which we would remember for the rest of our lives. Then he gathered himself and dashed off to pursue events unfolding outside in the ER parking lot that would involve Jacqueline Kennedy, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, and Judge Sarah T. Hughes.
Stephen Barnett, MD
I have some very distinct recollections on that grim day fifty years ago.
Cervando and I were on top of Parkland
checking out the new psych floor that was being added just before lunch. Suddenly cars flying and sirens yelling came over the hill at the juvenile detention center on Harry Hines Blvd. And I thought, “My god, they’ve killed the president.” The night before, I’d been doing some research in the med school library. An 8 x 11 poster was circulated that night. It was a mug shot of JFK and below it said, Wanted, dead or alive for treason.
We ran for the elevator, but then I ran down the stairs for the ER. I arrived just as the president was slipped into the trauma room and Mrs. Kennedy was being led away. At that point, the Secret Service ushered me out of the ER entrance. About a half hour later, Vice President Johnson was shuffled out and into the back seat of an old model car and whisked away.
I remember feeling stunned, at a loss to respond, confused between sorrow and rage, but left in an empty hole the rest of the afternoon.
And that’s the way it was, for this observer.
James Carrico, MD
(oral history courtesy of the Sixth Floor Museum)
I don’t remember the early morning. Actually, I was assigned to Surgery C, which is an elective surgery service, and it was our day to admit patients. So, we came in . . . I’m confident we came in early that morning and made rounds. It was also our clinic day. We didn’t operate that day. We had our . . . basically, our office. So, we . . . early in the morning, probably 8:30 or 9:00, went over to our clinic to start seeing patients, both patients we had operated on and patients who were being evaluated for new operations.