A doctor who was a young medical student in Dallas on the day President Kennedy was shot has described the events that he had kept quiet about for 50 years.
Dr James Henry 'Red' Duke, 84, was a fourth year surgery student at Parkland Hospital in Dallas and so focused on his studies that the President being in town barely registered.
'I don't think I was hardly conscious of the fact that the president and his wife were going to be there,' he told KHOU.
Moment in history: Dr Red Duke rarely speaks about the events of November 22, 1963, even though he was present with President Kennedy was admitted to hospital after being shot in Dallas
Emergency: Crowds gathered outside Parkland Hospital as Duke and his colleagues worked on President Kennedy and Governor Connally
It wasn't until a flurry of limousines and motorcycles from the President's motorcade screeched into the emergency entrance at Parkland that the official visit became real.
Duke had been quietly eating his lunch at 12:36pm when the speaker system called for the hospital's chief of surgery, 'stat.'
Another doctor told Duke to run with him to the emergency room because the President had been shot.
Unaware of the seriousness of the President's injuries, Duke thrilled at the prospect of treating a President.
Motorcade: Footage shows limos and motorbikes arriving at Parkland's emergency entrance
Fifty years later: Parkland Hospital, where President Kennedy was treated after being shot in Dallas
'Being a typical country boy,' Duke told KHOU 'I thought, "Golly, I'm going to get to meet a president."'
Any thoughts of shaking the President's hand were quickly forgotten when Duke entered the trauma ward and saw Kennedy's blood beginning to pool on the floor as doctors desperately tried to save his life.
'I saw these people standing there,' he told KHOU.
John Wayne in scrubs: Dr Red Duke has become a well-respected and much loved figure in his native Texas
'And I saw Mrs. Kennedy seated by the door. And her clothing was stained. And I realized that this was not a good deal.'
'I right quick recognized that this was a fatal injury,' Duke recalls.
He knew that it was futile to attempt to aid the doctors who were working on the dying President.
'I have no idea what I said, but they said, "Well, there's a guy across the hall needs some help,"' he said.
The young surgeon crossed the hall and found a man with a severe chest wound.
'Functioning in this kind of situation, I think we develop the ability to just get focused in on the problem,' he told KHOU.
'You don't care who it is or what it is. You just try to identify the problem and do the things that need to be done to achieve your goal.;
Duke began prepping the man for surgery, only dimly noticing that the man he was treating was Governor John Connally.
According to KHOU, Duke had plans to take his wife to the opera on November 22, 1963, but they never made it. In fact, Duke didn't return home for several days, staying by Connally's bedside as the President's state funeral took place, and Lee Harvey Osward was shot.
Duke's wife told him later that the couple's then-three-year-old daughter said grace at the table before dinner.
She said, 'The world is dark and we are very sad.'
That a three-year-old could intuit the sombre mood surrounding the events and describe it so precisely shocks Duke to this day.
But for the respected surgeon, the dark, sad day is one he prefers not to speak about, even 50 years later.
Fateful day: Just hours after this photograph was taken, Dr Red Duke received John F Kennedy into the emergency room and knew the President had been fatally injured
Moment of truth: Young medical student Dr Duke treated Governor John Connally when he first arrived at the hospital after being shot in the chest
Since those events, Red Duke has become a well-respected and much-loved Houston surgeon. He's been referred to as 'John Wayne in scrubs,' and ran a nationally-syndicated television spot called 'Dr Red Duke's Health Reports' for 15 years.
He was also instrumental in introducing Houston's Life Flight medical transport service to Houston, Texas.
According to Your Houston News, Dr Duke still works 12-hour days saving lives at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston.
To this day, Duke finds it difficult to believe his role in the day the nation stopped.
For years, he didn't talk about it. And for all the years of medical practice, in an office cluttered with mementoes and souvenirs, he has nothing to commemorate that day.
He doesn't need anything to remember it by - the events of November 22 1963 are indelibly etched on his memory.
'It's so surreal that it doesn't make sense. It's like an out-of-body experience. But I was there, I did all that stuff,' he said.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2486927/Texas-surgeon-recalls-scenes-emergency-room-50th-anniversary-JFKs-death.html#ixzz2jhKSbgZc
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