14. Teddy Roosevelt Decided That a Bullet in His Chest Was No Reason To Not Give a Speech
After he was shot and the would-be assassin was turned over to the police, Teddy Roosevelt reached inside his shirt and fell around to check on the damage. His probing fingers eventually encountered a dime-sized hole, and told an aide “He pinked me“. The former president then coughed into his hand a few times, and when he saw no blood, he determined that his lung had not been pierced. He then directed that he be driven to the Milwaukee Auditorium to deliver his scheduled speech.
The hefty speech, squeezed into Roosevelt’s jacket pocket, had combined with a glass case and a dense overcoat to slow the bullet. It was later recovered lodged against his fourth rib, on a trajectory to his heart. As to the shooter, Schrank acted because of a dream, in which the assassinated President William McKinley had urged him to avenge him and kill his vice president and successor, Roosevelt. Schrank was found legally insane, and institutionalized until his death in 1943.