Official Portrait of President Ronald Reagan. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

March 30, 1981, was the day that President Reagan was shot. The Daily Caller posted a very interesting article on the shooting on Friday. It seems that sometimes a small decision can have a lot of impact.

The article at the Daily Caller reported that after the assassination attempt on President Reagan, Mike Deaver felt responsible for the injuries to James Brady. It seems that as they were leaving the hotel, one of the reporters asked a question and Mr. Deaver moved Press Secretary Brady closer to the reporter to answer the question. Mr. Deaver felt that he had put the Press Secretary in the line of fire and was responsible for his getting shot.

Later, Mr. Deaver talked to the neurosurgeon that had operated on the Press Secretary.

The article tells the story:

The doctor listened, thought about it. When Deaver had told his story, the doctor asked, “How tall are you?”

Deaver was startled. “I told him, ‘I’m five foot nine.’ ”

And the neurosurgeon said, “Jim Brady is six feet tall. And if he’d stayed there where he had been before you moved him Ronald Reagan would be dead. Because Brady took the bullet that would have killed Reagan.”

If it had been Deaver standing where Brady was, the bullet would have gone over his head and hit the president.

As it was, we came very close the losing a great President. If Mike Deaver had not wanted to let the Press Secretary answer the question, we probably would have lost Ronald Reagan in that incident. There is a very good book written about the events of that day called Rawhide Down written by Del Quentin Wilber. I strongly recommend it.