05 March 2008

Theodore Roosevelt

While [Teddy] Roosevelt was campaigning [for a third term four years after his second term was complete] in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on October 14, 1912, a saloonkeeper named John Schrank failed in an attempt to assassinate him. Schrank did shoot the former President, but the bullet lodged in Roosevelt's chest only after penetrating both his steel eyeglass case and passing through a thick (50 pages) single-folded copy of the speech he was carrying in his jacket. Roosevelt, as a very experienced hunter and anatomist, decided that the fact that he wasn't coughing blood meant the bullet had not completely penetrated the chest wall to his lung (he was correct), and so declined suggestions he go to the hospital immediately. Instead, he delivered his scheduled speech with blood seeping into his shirt.

What a badass.

4 comments:

Pepper said...

shit.

iWant said...

Wasn't T.R. a Texan?

Publichealth_Weaver_Gregory(TA) said...

But he did run on a platform of univeral health care.

Matt said...

@iwant: No, he was a New Yorker.