“He said very excitedly: ‘You’re right, you’re right, you’re right!’ I left, and was driven over to the hospital, but by that time the operation was either over or in progress, so I did not see Huey. I stayed in the hotel, and Tonnie joined me there the next day.” * * * * * The operation was begun at 11:22 P.M., but Drs. Maes and Rives were not present. What happened is told by Dr. Rives in the following account: “Dr. Maes had been called, I have forgotten by whom, and he was asked to fly to Baton Rouge as Huey Long had been shot; a chartered plane would be waiting for him at the New Orleans airport, and a highway car at the one in Baton Rouge. He asked me to go with him to assist him if he had surgery to do, and I told him there was no sense in flying to Baton Rouge, because I could drive him there in the time it would take to drive out to the New Orleans airport, and then, after the flight, from the Baton Rouge airfield to the hospital. This proved to be not right. “We were in my car and I was driving. The road then ran beside the old O-K Interurban Line tracks, and just outside of Metairie an S-curve crossed the tracks, a black-top road with graveled shoulders. Just before we entered this S-curve another car, coming from the opposite direction, swept through it and put its bright lights right into my eyes. I was going about forty-five or fifty. I was not racing, in other words, but I got my right wheel into the loose gravel of the shoulder, and ended up skidding completely around and facing back in the direction of New Orleans on the old gravel road beyond the S-curve. “My differential housing was caught on the high center of this old gravel road, with only one rear wheel on the ground. We did no damage to the car, but with only one wheel on the ground, a car is helpless. We finally flagged someone driving back toward New Orleans and asked him to send a wrecker to pull us back on the road. Actually they sent only a truck, but it took us off the high center and then we went on. I should say we lost not more than half an hour, but I think we would not have reached Baton Rouge until after the operation even if we had not met with this accident. “We did not have permission to use the completed but not yet opened Airline Highway beyond Kenner, so I took the old River Road. As we finally drove into Baton Rouge, there wasn’t a soul in sight, aside from a policeman or two. No one was abroad on the streets; lights in the houses, yes, but no people or cars on the streets. To outward appearances, it was the most deserted community I ever saw, and going to Our Lady of the Lake Sanitarium we had to drive right through the center of town. “At the hospital we were met by highway police, identified ourselves, which was required, and then we were conducted to the entrance where someone else took us up to the ward where Huey had been placed....” * * * * *