3. Roosevelt’s Miraculous Escape
After getting shot by John Flammang Schrank, Teddy Roosevelt reached inside his shirt and felt around, until he encountered a dime-sized hole. TR told an aide “He pinked me “. He then coughed into his hand a few times, and seeing no blood, determined that his lung had not been pierced. TR then directed that he be driven to the Milwaukee Auditorium, to address the waiting audience.
Roosevelt’s hefty speech, squeezed into his jacket pocket, had combined with a glass case and a dense overcoat to slow Schrank’s bullet. It was later recovered lodged against his fourth rib, on a trajectory to his heart. As to Schrank, he shot TR because the assassinated president William McKinley had urged Schrank in a dream to avenge him by killing his vice president and successor, TR. Schrank was found legally insane, and institutionalized until his death in 1943.