Vincent Palamara Archive - Write to Vince at  vmplac@telerama.com

Robert E. Schorlemer, M.D.

"I was a senior medical student making rounds in the E.R. (at Parkland
Hospital) with second-year surgery resident, Dr. James Carrico, to
evaluate who was to be admitted from the night-shift holdovers. We were
moving from one stall to another when we heard banging of doors from the
triage station at the front of the ER. Shortly thereafter, we heard 
screaming from the front asking for more stretchers, and right after that 
Gov. Connally was pushed through the hall door on  a gurney. He was 
wearing a gray silk suit with alligator shoes and was moaning and gasping 
for air.
    Red Duke, the chief resident in surgery manning the ER, jumped up
from the nurses' station, and we all moved into ER operating room #1 to
take care of him. I opened his shirt to see a chest wound on his right
side sucking air. Red directed  that a Vaseline gauze pad be placed over
the wound to help seal the pneumothorax that was
produced by this until they could get a chest tube placed. I did this.
At that point, Jim
Carrico said, "Let's go to the next room to get ready for the next case
coming in."

As we walked out of the room, President Kennedy was wheeled into the
hallway
separating the two rooms. In my disbelief, I figured that this had to be
his double as no one could believe that the president could be placed in
such jeopardy. As one could see, half of the calivarium of the skull had
been blown away with the underlying brain exposed and the flap produced
lying behind his head. Some agonal movements were being made, and Jim
directed that I get the IV started while he tried to intubate him. His
comment was, "Boy, I'm lucky to have been able to intubate him because
the trachea was severed by one of the bullets."

At this time two Secret Service agents entered the room cursing and
yelling. They asked
who I was, since I had removed my newly cleaned and pressed white jacket
worn by all
medical students at the time. I didn't want to get any stains on it at
the time. (Now it would
have been a collector's item.) When they found out I was a lowly medical
student, they
kicked me out of the room. I then called for the chief of the surgery
and neurosurgery
resident and Dr. Kemp Clark, head of the neurosurgery department.

Jackie, who had come in with the stretcher carrying President Kennedy,
stood outside the
room in the hall separating the two ER operating rooms. She remained
there, until they
removed Kennedy after pronouncing him dead. Even though the Secret
Service agents
removed me from the room, they did not cordon the area off enough to
keep another
medical student... from coming around from the prep and cleaning area to
come up to
Jackie and attempt to console her. I thought this rather strange that no
one was paying
attention to her at the time other than a complete stranger. He had,
previous to being a
medical student, been an evangelistic singer.

It's amazing that (my) memory is unchanged from the day this happened. I
don't have
trouble remembering any of the details.

Robert E. Schorlemer, M.D.
San Antonio, Texas"
http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/special/jfk/index.html