RONALD REAGAN & JAMES GARFIELD
On March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot outside a Washington hotel. One hundred years earlier, President James Garfield was shot inside a Washington train station. A century of medical progress made the difference in the two men’s fates.
President Reagan waves to a crowd outside the Washington Hilton Hotel seconds before the shooting, March 30, 1981.
The moment President Garfield is shot, July 2, 1881.
RONALD REAGAN
On Monday afternoon, March 30, 1981, Ronald Reagan, age 70, exited the Washington Hilton Hotel after giving a speech. He had been president for 69 days. Reagan was surrounded by police officers and Secret Service agents.
A young man in the crowd, John Hinckley Jr., raised his gun and shot six times. Bullets struck and wounded Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy, DC police officer Thomas Delahanty, and Reagan’s press secretary James Brady. A bullet ricocheted off the presidential limousine and hit Reagan in the chest.
The Secret Service sped the president to George Washington University Hospital’s emergency room. The bullet had missed his heart by barely an inch, but it punctured a lung. Reagan lost more than half his body’s blood. During nearly three hours of surgery, doctors treated his lung injury, removed the bullet, and controlled his bleeding. Reagan received antibiotics to fight possible infection and transfusions to replace his significant blood loss.
Within two weeks, the president walked out of the hospital and returned to the White House, eventually making a full recovery. Emergency surgery saved his life.
James Garfield wasn’t as fortunate.
JAMES GARFIELD
On Saturday morning, July 2, 1881, James Garfield, age 49, arrived at the station to catch a train for the first leg of his family’s summer vacation. He had been president for 120 days. Unlike President Reagan a hundred years later, Garfield had no Secret Service or police protection.
As the president casually walked across a waiting room with his secretary of state, Charles Guiteau stepped from the shadows and shot twice. One bullet grazed Garfield’s arm. The other entered his back. After about an hour, he was taken from the train station to the White House in the back of a horse-drawn ambulance.
Garfield’s wound was much less serious than Reagan’s. Though the bullet had broken ribs, it missed Garfield’s organs and ended up harmlessly in fatty tissue. He lost little blood and didn’t need life-saving surgery. But Garfield’s doctors failed to practice antiseptic care. They introduced bacteria into his body during their repeated probing of his wound. After 80 days of suffering in bed, the president succumbed to a deadly infection.
Reagan on his feet four days after the shooting. He left the hospital a week after that.
Garfield remained bedridden for 80 days until his death from infection.
THE ASSASSINS’ TRIALS:
John Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to a psychiatric institution.
Charles Guiteau, who had a history of mental illness, was found guilty and hung several months after his conviction.
[Colored images from the Reagan Library.]