“Suppose you let me tell the whole story, exactly as I recall it,” the latter began, when asked about his recollections of what took place in the operating room of Our Lady of the Lake Sanitarium when Huey Long was admitted there as a patient that September night. Dr. Cecil Lorio and Dr. Walter Cook were, at the time of this inquiry, the only surviving physicians who were present throughout all the ensuing surgical procedure. “When she failed to reach my brother Clarence,” Dr. Lorio continued, “Lucille May Grace called me at my home, and I left at once for Our Lady of the Lake Sanitarium. Huey’s clothing had been removed by the time I got there, and he was in bed in his room at the east end of the third-floor corridor. He was fully conscious and we talked quietly from time to time during the next hour. He was particularly distressed by the thought that he might now be unable to carry out his plan to screen students for L.S.U., so as to make it possible for all exceptionally bright high-school graduates, however needy their families, to receive the advantages of college education. “I took his blood pressure and pulse every fifteen minutes; he had evidently learned something about the significance of this, for when he asked me what the readings were, and I told him his pulse rate was getting faster and his blood pressure was dropping a bit, he said: ‘That’s not good, is it?’ and I answered him by saying: ‘No, but it isn’t too bad yet, either.’ ‘It means there’s an internal hemorrhage?’ he then asked. I said he was probably hemorrhaging some, but that the relation between blood pressure and pulse rate was one that could also be attributed to shock. He was very curious about who had shot him, saying it was someone he had never seen before. “He had visibly a small blue puncture on the right side of his abdomen, and another on the right side of his back where the bullet emerged. Both were very small. But it was obvious some emergency surgery would have to be performed sooner or later. I was told that Dr. Sanderson had been summoned from Shreveport, and that Drs. Urban Maes and James Rives were already en route from New Orleans. Dr. Maes had been appointed to the chair of surgery at L.S.U.’s new medical college, of which Dr. Vidrine, also present in Baton Rouge at the time, was dean, along with his position as superintendent of Charity Hospital. He was in general charge of the patient’s case. At some point in the proceedings word was brought to us that a motoring accident had forced Dr. Rives’s car off the road, and that they would be delayed some time by the difficulty of securing service at that time of night to have their car dragged back to the highway. When informed of this, Dr. Vidrine decided not to wait any longer.”