How President William McKinley’s Life Could Have Been Saved – Dale’s Daily Data

It was the final stop of a cross country train trip that took the president out west and back east to Buffalo for the Pan American Exposition where there were incredible things to see.  It was 1901 and people traveled from all over the world to see some of the discoveries that would change their lives in the 20^th century.  And what President William McKinley saw astounded him.  He went from building to building, shaking his head over the things he saw.  And this was at a time when homes and buildings were being lighted with electricity for the first time.  People were talking to each other across long distances on telephones.  And McKinley was the first president to ride in a motorized vehicle.

McKinley also wanted to reach out to some of the people at the event so a public meeting line formed at the Temple of Music.  The secret service tried to convince McKinley it wasn’t a good idea, but he insisted.  Even still, agents failed to spot a man standing in line with a gun covered with nothing but a handkerchief.

When McKinley reached out to shake this man’s hand, he was shot twice at point-blank range.  For a moment the president and the shooter just stared at each other.  As the secret service wrestled the man to the ground McKinley pleaded with them, “Don’t hurt him.”

Doctors went to work to save the president’s life.  They found one of the bullets but looked long and hard for the second and couldn’t find it.  All they could do was stitch him up and hope for the best.
Eight days after he was shot, William McKinley died and the bullet was still lodged somewhere in his back.  Interesting that one of the marvels of the 20^th Century that McKinley saw the day he was shot was one that
could have saved his life.  It was something doctors could have used to find that second bullet – if they only
knew how to use it.  The x-ray machine.