Ambushed! by Gail Jarrow

Author:Gail Jarrow [Jarrow, Gail]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Astra Publishing House
Published: 2021-10-12T00:00:00+00:00

“You must keep up courage & never let it fail.”

—Willie Reinig, age fifteen, Des Moines, Iowa

WHEN AGNEW AND HAMILTON ENTERED THE SICKROOM ON Sunday morning, July 24, they were alarmed to find the president covered with sweat. The other doctors said that he had been perspiring profusely throughout the night. They all recognized the symptoms. A severe infection had overtaken Garfield’s body.

As the two surgeons examined him, they found a sac full of pus under his skin three inches below the bullet hole. They’d have to open it so that the pus could drain out.

Bliss gave the president the news, warning him that it would be a painful procedure.

“Very well,” Garfield said, without hesitating. “Whatever you say is necessary must be done.”

Agnew did the cutting, with Hamilton assisting. They sprayed Garfield’s skin with ether, but it wasn’t enough to completely dull the pain. Without crying out or flinching, Garfield endured the slice of the scalpel as Agnew made a two-and-a-half-inch incision. He cut down into Garfield’s flesh more than an inch to open up an exit for the pus. Then the surgeons inserted a rubber drainage tube.

The pus flowed out, but not well enough. Within two days, Garfield redeveloped the same symptoms: high fever, profuse sweating, chills, vomiting. Agnew operated again to enlarge the opening. He removed small pieces of bone from the wound, likely splintered off the rib when the bullet slammed into Garfield’s body. Agnew inserted two rubber tubes to drain the pus filling the channel that extended down from the bullet wound.

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