In the first detailed description of former President Trump’s injury from a would-be assassin’s bullet, his campaign released a statement Saturday saying the bullet was “less than a quarter inch from entering his head.”
The description of Trump’s injury comes from U.S. Rep. Ronny L. Jackson (R-Texas), who served as Trump’s White House physician.
“The bullet passed within a quarter-inch of his head and struck the top of his right ear,” Jackson, a staunch Trump supporter, wrote in the statement. “The trajectory of the bullet produced a 2-centimeter-wide wound that extended to the cartilaginous surface of the ear. There was initial significant bleeding, followed by marked swelling of the entire upper portion of the ear.”
Jackson said the swelling has since gone down and the wound is healing well.
“Due to the highly vascular nature of the ear, there is always intermittent bleeding requiring dressing,” he wrote. “Given the large and blunt nature of the wound itself, no suturing was necessary.”
Trump was initially treated by staff at a Pennsylvania hospital. Jackson said he saw Trump the night of the shooting at Trump’s residence in Bedminster, New Jersey. “I have been with President Trump since that time, and have assessed and treated his wound daily. He is doing well,” Jackson wrote.
Trump, wearing a bandage over his ear, recounted the shooting for the first time publicly Thursday night when he formally accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for president at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
As a sign of solidarity, many congress participants wore bandages over their right ears.
A delegate from Arizona wears a bandage over her ear at the Republican National Convention.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
“You’ll never hear it from me a second time because it’s too painful to tell,” Trump said before describing what happened at a July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Trump said that as he turned his head to look at a graph projected on a screen, he heard “a loud hissing sound and felt something hit him very, very hard on my right ear.”
“I thought, ‘Wow, what was that? It has to be a bullet.’ I put my right hand to my ear and pulled it down. My hand was covered in blood,” he said.
