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By Root 1372 0

Doctors who had examined him could hear blood clots and mucus rattling in both lungs, but they detected no breath sounds at the base of either one. The left lung, of course, had been badly damaged by the bullet and the surgery, but blood and other debris had now worked their way into the right lung, so it too was not performing well. Reagan’s most recent X-ray was also somewhat troubling: in addition to showing the effects of the secretions in both lungs, it confirmed that the lower lobe of the left one remained collapsed.

Ben Aaron, who was keeping a close eye on Reagan, considered how he might clear out the lungs and help improve his patient’s breathing. The best approach, he thought, would be to perform a fiber-optic bronchoscopy—a procedure that would involve inserting a probe with a camera lens down the president’s breathing tube—to examine the lungs and the material collecting in them. Through the probe, Aaron could also inject saline into the lungs to loosen mucus and clots, then use the same device to remove the debris.

As one of Aaron’s assistants sterilized the bronchoscope, doctors increased Reagan’s air intake to 100 percent oxygen. Another physician, Jack Zimmerman, a specialist in treating critically ill patients after surgery, took his place at the head of the president’s bed, where he would operate the two-liter respiration bag to ensure that his patient got enough air during the procedure. Like many others that day, Zimmerman was struck by Reagan’s naturally dark hair.

Aaron lubricated the probe and inserted it into the president’s breathing tube. The probe got stuck about eight inches down; despite the pain medications, Reagan stirred and became agitated. Zimmerman assured him that everything would be okay.

The surgeon tried again but still couldn’t maneuver the probe past a kink in the tube. They now had two options. They could swap out the breathing tube for a new one—a laborious and somewhat risky maneuver—or try a more conservative procedure, recommended by Zimmerman, that involved hyperinflating the lungs with a respirator bag, infusing them with a small amount of sterile saline, and then using a separate catheter to vacuum out the clots and secretions. Aaron told Zimmerman to give it a try, but then he was called out of the recovery room to operate for a second time on his patient from the night before; the man was once again bleeding badly.

Under Zimmerman’s direction, the two nurses attending the president in the recovery room—Denise Sullivan and Cathy Edmondson—inflated Reagan’s lungs, injected the solution, and sucked out debris. As Sullivan and Edmondson worked, Zimmerman explained the procedure to the president and told him to relax. But Reagan continued to tug at the uncomfortable tube. Edmondson had to admonish him several times. “Don’t pull at it now,” she said. “You are going to have to let me breathe for you.”

As time went on, the president’s blood tests steadily improved. Zimmerman adjusted the respirator to deliver 60 percent oxygen, then 50 percent. Soon Reagan felt well enough to ask for a pencil and a piece of paper. Lying on his back, he began jotting notes on white and pink hospital records attached to a clipboard. His handwriting was shaky—he was still groggy from the anesthesia and the painkillers—but it impressed the nurses that he could write at all.

“All in all, I’d rather be in Phil.,” he scratched, a near quotation of a famous crack by the comedian W. C. Fields.

Everyone around the bed chuckled. Okay, thought Denise Sullivan. He’s going to make it.

In another note, this one somewhat garbled, Reagan wrote, “I am aren’t alive aren’t I?” The nurses assured him that he was.

He also asked about the shooting. “What happened to the guy with the gun? Was anyone else hurt?”

Sullivan thought hard about how to respond. She had been told to say nothing to the president about the other victims, particularly Jim Brady. “Two other people were shot,” Sullivan replied, “but they are okay, don’t worry about them. And yes, they got the guy with the gun.”

A flurry of notes followed.