“The patient never really recovered consciousness. He was in shock, and under sedation, until he died. As the day [Monday] wore on, and Huey’s blood pressure continued to fall, a transfusion was ordered. It may have been earlier that the transfusion was given. The hospital records would show.”
Unfortunately, the hospital record shows only one transfusion, given at 8:15 Monday night, nearly twenty-four hours after the shooting. However, it must be borne in mind that in those days, long before blood and plasma banks had been established as standard hospital facilities, transfusions were by no means the routine procedure they are today. In the case of Huey Long, a chart note signed by Dr. Roy Theriot records the fact that five hundred cubic centimeters of citrated blood were given, that before transfusion approximately three hundred cubic centimeters of normal saline solution were given intravenously at a time when the pulse was very thready, and that the transfusion was followed by a continuous intravenous drip of glucose in normal saline. Even after this the patient’s blood pressure was only 114 over 84, while the pulse rate was still a frightening “170-plus.”
Almost as soon as Senator Long had been brought to the hospital, volunteer blood donors were typed, and their blood cross-matched with that of the patient. According to the laboratory report incorporated in the hospital chart, J. A. Vitiano, Eddie Knoblock, Colonel Rougon, J. R. Pollett, M. E. Bird, George Castigliola, and Paul Voitier were marked “incompatible”; C. J. Campbell, John Kirsch, “no name,” Joe Bates, Senator Noe, Bill Melton, and a Mr. Walker were found to be compatible. In addition, “no name,” Bates, Noe, and Melton were also marked with an “O.K.”
Senator Noe was the first and apparently only donor, and it is my recollection that we met in the Heidelberg Hotel elevator Monday night when he told me he had “just given blood to Huey.” Mrs. Noe was with him at the time, said she was sure Senator Long would recover, and expressed the hope that future installments of the _Saturday Evening Post’s_ biographical portrait would “do him proud.”
A little after two o’clock that afternoon Dr. Maes had prescribed a rectal instillation of laudanum, aspirin, brandy, and normal saline solution. Once this was given, the chart notes: “Resp. less labored, less cyanosis, P 148 Temp. 103⁴⁄₅ axilla. Quieter.” During the handling that was incident to the instillation, Senator Long awoke and asked Dr. Maes whether he would be able to take the stump in the approaching campaigns. “It’s a little early to tell, yet,” the physician replied. As before, the patient lapsed into drugged slumber the moment the handling that had roused him came to an end.