Rawhide Down_ The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan - Del Quentin Wilber [44]
Parr weighed the two options. Neither seemed particularly good.
He looked again at the president. Having soaked the napkin with blood, Reagan was now pressing his handkerchief to his lips. Parr examined the blood more closely. Again he noted that it looked frothy, which meant that it was probably oxygenated and coming from the president’s lungs. This was no cut lip—the president had likely suffered some kind of lung injury.
“I think we should go to the hospital,” Parr told Reagan.
“Okay,” said the president.
Parr turned forward and hollered at Unrue. “Get us to George Washington as fast as you can.”
Unrue picked up his radio microphone. “Gordon, Unrue,” he said, speaking to Mary Ann Gordon in the spare limousine.
“Go ahead, Drew,” Gordon responded.
“We want to go to the emergency room of George Washington,” Unrue said.
“That’s a roger,” Gordon said.
“Go to George Washington fast,” Unrue said.
Parr grabbed the radio microphone from Unrue and asked Ray Shaddick if he had received that last transmission. Shaddick replied that he had.
“Get an ambulance, I mean, get a stretcher out there,” Parr said. “Let’s hustle.”
Lights flashing and sirens screaming, the motorcade streaked across L Street. They were now about a mile from the hospital.
* * *
IN THE FRONT passenger seat of the spare limousine, Mary Ann Gordon tried to reach the lead police car by radio. “We’re going to GW hospital,” she told the police sergeant.
But she received no reply and wasn’t sure the sergeant had heard her. Worse, if the motorcycles and squad car missed the turn onto Pennsylvania Avenue for the trip to the hospital, the presidential limousine would be exposed. She needed another vehicle to get in front of Stagecoach to help clear traffic and act as a battering ram if confronted by assailants. Gordon also didn’t want Unrue to worry about how to get to GW.
“We have to get in front of the limo,” Gordon told her driver. He immediately swept around the follow-up car, accelerated past the president’s limousine, and pulled in front of it.
As Connecticut Avenue turned into Seventeenth Street, Gordon looked ahead and saw the police cars and motorcycles continue straight for the White House. The spare limousine made the sharp right onto Pennsylvania Avenue; a moment later, Gordon spotted a Secret Service sedan ahead of them. It was the so-called route car, which always preceded the motorcade by five minutes to ensure that the streets were free of trouble. Its driver and the agent riding with him had heard the radio transmissions about the decision to go to the hospital and were now clearing a path through traffic. His siren wailing, the driver of the route car honked his horn, flashed his headlights, and sped through each intersection ahead of the motorcade.
The president’s limousine had just six blocks to go.
* * *
ONLY JERRY PARR knew why the motorcade was racing to the hospital. Mary Ann Gordon and Ray Shaddick had no idea what had happened; even Drew Unrue, who assumed Reagan had been injured while being pushed into the car, didn’t know how seriously the president had been hurt.
Reagan’s top aides were also at sea. Two of them were already on their way to the hospital: Mike Deaver and David Fischer, along with the president’s military aide, were riding in the control car, just behind the makeshift motorcade. After the shooting, Deaver had scrambled for the door of the president’s limousine but couldn’t open it. Then he spotted Fischer, the president’s body man, huddled nearby and pointing at the control car. “We have to get to that car!” Fischer yelled at Deaver.
A minute or two later, as they careened down Seventeenth Street, Fischer reached over and squeezed Deaver’s hand. “Everything is going to be okay, Mike.”
Fischer saw the limousine turn in what seemed to be the wrong direction, down Pennsylvania Avenue and away from the White House. The control car made the same pivot, and soon Fischer realized that the president’s motorcade