Street's Corner: Doctor Recalls Kennedy's Last Moments (extended interview)

my role was working with a second-year resident who had been directed with me to go to the emergency room we were up on the second floor surgery clinic that day and we had patients that had come in during the night from the for various complaints and as the chief surgery resident directed us to go to the emergency room to take care of them and see which ones needed to be admitted at that point we had gone down and the way the hospital emergency room was laid out at that time there are cubicles with curtains in front and sections of emergency room or for surgery patients and internal medicine patients obstetrics gynecology and pediatrics and there were two operating rooms that were downstairs that were more major surgical procedures could be performed for resuscitation before taking them in the hospital and we were in front of one of those when we heard the announcement from the triage desk that they needed needed stretchers and there was just a lot of banging noise which is which was unusual I mean you just wouldn't hear that they were hollering and screaming through the intercom and so at that point a doctor read Duke it was the chief resident running the emergency room he was in charge and immediately started going to that first operating room which was operating room two actually there he as we came out of our cubicle there rolling in a gentleman whose gray hair and wearing a silver gray suit alligator boots and striped I have thought what were they doing here at the emergency room at parkland County Hospital and it was governor Colley so we went into that room to assist a red Duke and initiation of the resuscitation at that point we dressed him to see where his injuries were he had a gaping wound in his chest when put the UH put some gauze across the the wound in order to seal it so that he could reconstitute perhaps with a chest tube the lung on that side Kiriko dr. Koh's dr. James Carrick oh he's a second-year surgery resident said let's go and get ready for the next patient so as we walked out of that operating room they were wheeling in President Kennedy and you know it's just disbelief when I saw authen they that wasn't President Kennedy they probably had doubles that they put in the car and run around and show and there was a funny movie about that some years ago about a duplicate and so immediately this part is just embedded in my brain is just this part of his head was blown away and the brains were exposed the calvarium had slipped behind his head and was still connected by by the scalp and the base and so we wheeled him in and started to get the IV started Kiriko went for to do into tracheal intubation and I can still hear and say you know boy did I look out I just got that tube passed a Sepphoris of the trachea and and to to breathe for him at that point and Jackie Kennedy had come by along and she was walking behind the gurney her dress was all matted with blood and Clausen and and brain tissue dropping from the from the skirt and she was standing outside the doors were closed and at that point the Secret Service men came in and they were you know cursing and and just in in their anxiety and in their stress of the day I then said you don't want to know who was in the room with them and I'd taken off my life jacket because it was clean that day and not just gone from the cleaners and I didn't want to get any blood which sometimes happened for patients we were resuscitating and so they have tile and they said who are you and I said I'm senior medical student Schroeder and so I said we'll get the hell out and so I was starting the IV and which was kind of odd because you want you want to get the resuscitation going while there's still blood pressure enough to to insert a needle and so I left and immediately went to the phone at that point to call the neurosurgery chief of staff who was dr. Kim Clark and dr. Charles bait Oh Charlie Baxter who was the acting chief of surgery for the poro surgery for the medical school doc and I put in a page for them to come down immediately but the President had been shot at that point I went I called my brother he was that twin brother who's working in the blood bank at the time and he told him to bring two units of o-negative blood that we would suspected we might need and have been directed by doctor Yakko and dot and then I put give it back to them they weren't allowing anybody else in there so there was all these people that were in the hall of the going to the emergency room looked trying to look in through a little glass window and there was just a lot of things going on inside and out of the excitement of the tragedy when when I reflect on it there were there's no one assisting Jackie at that point she was just standing outside the door in shock she wasn't crying or anything she just had a distant look on her face one of the medical students walked behind the area there because it's blocked off and came in through the back and started talking to her so he was consoling her and that was the only person who was around her it was odd that there weren't Secret Service surrounding her or assisting her and at that point then about 30 minutes later priest came in and and then I guess around one o'clock or 1:15 they pronounced that he was dead when he came in he had some agonal respiratory movement when he was just being wheeled into the room but that injury was so severe because of how that impact and what it does to the brain that shirin affected the breathing centers for them in the brain - for him to continue to be able to breathe even after that point it was mind-numbing I mean there wasn't things that you could concentrate on from that point forward that day no one tried to make diagnostic decisions about whether that person could stare so after James Carrico got through you know we just went through the whole a gamut of all those patients and admitted them until we could have some other staff looking in on them and making a decision whether they needed to have surgery but that carried through for the whole week the issues of what transpired because there were it was another it was a day in a time of the fears of of what was going to happen in the government and the way the gun was going Dallas was considered a man of conservativism that was significant and so the disappointment of what happened really affected everybody including people who were from Dallas to begin with so there was so much sadness but also sin is from a tragedy that it happened had happened in Texas or happened in Dallas itself because no one I think really wanted that sort of thing to be a mark on them but also it even happened other other things that went on for me in that time was that it was an oddity the next day I had to go and I was directed to do an EKG at that point all medical students did what we call scut work it was the work of diagnosis drawing bloods and and doing EKGs we were the technicians doing an electrocardiogram and I did an electrocardiogram when I was on call that next day on governor Connally and the oddity there was we didn't have a s ICU he was he remained in the recovery room from the surgery after surgery and you walked in it was kind of a dark area it was a little off of where all the recovery room patients were but not that far there weren't a lot of Secret Service people around or anyone watching over him I mean I could have been anybody walking into to do that EKG so obviously I think that that's changed for people in terms of the injuries that would have happened it probably would have had more people around but I guess there was still trust and Governor Connally laws I'm sure there was somebody there we just didn't see him in the forefront my route had a roommate a doctor Fred B Bergdorf who is a senior medical student with me at the time and he happened to be the the jail doctor so the next morning he was on site when Lee Harvey Oswald was being transferred from City Jail and I had to then ride in the ambulance to to Parkland Hospital with him and he did he didn't get anything out of Lee Harvey he was in and out I think they thought that he was dead already because he was hemorrhaging from a shot through the foot through the pancreas I mean through the spleen and the liver both they got into the operating room though and he was still alive and he died because he had cardiac arrest there and and at that time they thought that maybe the because they were massively transfusing with the co blood that that they couldn't revive the heart and make it start up again otherwise maybe he might have left and nowadays we know we're in and there are blood warmers for patients who have to see massive blood transfusions but it wasn't something of my making it was just something to be there and so I never thought of it as anything other than I was a witness to a very significant part of history that there was personal touching and and and a mere chance of resuscitation that really important is it something that you don't like to talk about well it's a it's it's a short piece of history it's not something I did per se so there were more important figures in this whole sphere of of this story the doctors that that at least were there who were higher up on a chalant of trained physicians that the department heads so as a senior medical student you're kind of looked I guess at that point yes senior medical students are are a nonentity so to speak when dr. kirko gave his testimony to the warren commission he gave a list of people who were there and didn't give my list but he he and I were kind of like a team you follow us you follow our resident around and so one of the things was well you don't need to be taking away from your time on your education or where you are you hear of things later that went on perhaps in terms of those other instances I started to talk about dr. B Bergdorf and you know you get together sometimes on reunions and you cash over things but there wasn't any documentation that was there per se just as there weren't of a lot of other students that were perhaps in that area maybe not even the the person who was speaking to Jackie it's it's the work of the day as far as what we were doing I mean that's what you're trained that's what you go in for and then you go on to the next patient and may do the same thing I guess you look to your professors and they're the important people the residents who are training with you and helping you to learn are those important entities and I didn't feel myself as being the lifesaver and so if you weren't that part of saving a life it's it's just a memory that you have and you discuss that with your friends sometimes and as I remember November the 22nd years I'll just casually ask nurses are someone you know what happened to stay and a lot of people weren't remembering that day they don't put that day into context of of such a momentous occasion of tragedy I think as we grow older memories begin to be more and more important and there may be some emotion about it it's still easy to disbelieve I mean that that happened it just that was just something that in today's world you just iron in there that day's world you wouldn't suspect I think there have been so many terrorist events nowadays that almost I think the public is becoming used to it it's a point that it doesn't make the same emotion that it used to back then there were there there were days and weeks that we couldn't stop talking about it in those days you didn't have cell phones you didn't have everything that we have now to communicate more rapidly and bring in those people mean a fee if the the speed at which they came from from Dealey Plaza to down Harry Hines was quite quite rapid I mean so there may have been there been some remarks about being notified a couple of minutes beforehand but I think those minutes were from the front desk to from the time that they arrived at the front of the emergency hotel they arrived in the and the suite itself so there wasn't you know we didn't have any way of communicating I suppose maybe the radio of the police car coming the same we're bringing in wounded there are people who are paranoid they're people just as the person who shot him having a pathological vision of life or of who's the enemy and there are opportunists as well I mean people who write books want to sell books and and those the more weird that can get in terms of information I think and in building up a little side stories we'll be able to do that and as far as that's concerned that's beyond my expertise in terms of that dealing of who how many bullets could be fired from a gun most recently there was something in the Wall Street Journal about how the bullet was tumbling and and therefore was able to show how it created its injury both to two people at one time instead of three bullets so someone was mentioning this morning about well but since that Jack Kennedy had his back brace that kept him from falling forward and therefore it put him in danger of having his head in on the second time you know those were into people who do physics who know the abilities of a shooter to be able to accomplish that so was there somebody on the grassy now you know I guess you have to just read the books and listen to the experts there's so much to be doing as a senior medical student to be learning it's beyond the pale to even think of what you need to know in the books and what you are able to know and so those were your goals and in that immediate timeframe you're reading some what you get in the newspaper here on the radio to become the expert over time was something that I just didn't have time as I said we moved around and so there were all these other issues that were part of the more important picture you know you know what you knew and on left that up to others to try to decide is that something on big anniversaries everyone asks where you were Oh everybody can say everyone who's alive at that time and remembering I mean and that's what you find out once you start talking about November 22nd oh yeah I remember that I mean I was here and and tears were always a part of that for almost everyone who remember it I got to imagine at dinner parties when people start talking about where they were when Kennedy was shot you've got the you got the trump card like you got the animal on that yeah yeah that's yeah that that stops a conversation someone else you know brings it up and I'm sure that's going to happen the next week or so I mean it's already happened what do the people in the in the office when when they find out you know and well what is well you know what do they say or what is the reaction when they know when they learn this about you and some of them known you for years and yes and say why didn't you why do you why don't you tell me that what do you tell of it yeah something you just don't make a big deal I don't make a big deal about it it's just well you tell a story and you then assume everybody else knows and you know somebody else comes into your life or passes through and then you have to tell a story again so it's a I guess a little repetitive but it's also it's not it's it's it's not an accomplishment I mean delivering quadruplets wasn't was a exciting thing for me and it was accomplishment healthy children and those are things that are something that I participated in more successful with them hopefully it continued to be I mean obviously someone had to be the first person to take care of him when he came to the door yeah I just am amazed that it was a senior student well as who's there it's who's there and and I was a Southwestern University of Texas Southwestern rental school a senior students played a big role and we always looked and thought of you want to publish this at all but we always made a comment about the senior students were better at handling clinical aspects of care than the interns coming from the East Coast schools when they came in to do internship because there was a lot more practical work that we did I mean we were allowed to participate in that and so there was a growing up of being a physician I think we didn't know everything but there was good supervision and I felt I had a great education when I went off to to be mentoring or resident

Channel: KABB FOX San Antonio

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Id: s6_d2O47_qs

Length: 23min 53sec (1433 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 21 2013