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THE CONDESCENDING BULLET
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• strained to find something that refused to be discovered. There was no trace of blood that could be attributed to a wound, nor was there any wound within the entire cavity.
Furthermore, there was no bullet in the pelvic region where the X-rays had unmistakably shown it to be!
A doctor doesn't fall into deep meditation with a seriously wounded man on the table, so Robertson had Shaffer laced together and placed in bed.
Without further hesitation, all of the available doctors in the area, in' eluding Brigadier General J. I. Martin, the Fifth Army's chief medical officer, were called in to huddle over the X-rays. The bullet was undoubtedly still in the hip region, but why couldn't it be found?
The ensuing sessions provided little
.more than plenty of head scratching and numerous faces that were twisted with bewilderment. Finally, one of the doctors offered the suggestion that, perhaps after having spent itself in the heart, the bullet had dropped down the inferior vena cava, a vein about the size of a small garden hose which carries blood to the heart from the legs and torso. This explanation was entirely plausible but it just didn't seem possible, as a .31 caliber machine gun bullet is about as wide as a lead
k pencil and over an inch in length. Even if this were the case, then the pin-pointed edges of the copper jacket would have certainly torn the vein to jhreds. Furthermore, the doctors argued, the very presence of such an obstruction within the vein should lave stopped the flow of blood through
*.his main supplier of the heart, result
ing in a deadly hemorrhage. But somehow, the blood was managing to reach his heart. Despite every conceivable reason why it couldn't be so, Ray Shaffer lived.
Two days elapsed with the bullet still in Shaffer's body. After exhausting all other possibilities, Robertson summoned a vein specialist from Naples to substantiate or reject the controversial hypothesis which claimed the bullet was inside the vein.
The specialist carefully examined the X-rays, noting that the bullet showed as a white object on the films. He suggested that an opaque fluid be injected into Shaffer's vein. This would show up on an X-ray plate as a white area. Therefore, if the bullet was in the vein, it would blend with the fluid to show a solid white segment beginning at the point of stoppage.
At the completion of this test all suspicions were removed. The hypothesis was correct. No doubt about it, Ray Shaffer ought to be dead!
An Italian doctor accompanying the specialist was taken aside by Major Robertson. "Doctor," Robertson asked, "you don't believe this is really possible, do you?"
"Clinically impossible," the Italian answered. "But with God, all things are possible."
Two weeks after he had been hit, Ray Shaffer was operated upon. The doctors gave him a strange souvenir: the bullet which had tried, and failed, to end his life. From Europe, he was sent to Walter Reed Hospital, where he convalesced for seven months. Finally, after spending eight months more at Fitzsimmons General Hospital