Joseph Giordano, former Army surgeon who helped save Reagan’s life, dies at 84

Joseph Giordano, the former head of surgery and director of the trauma center at George Washington University Hospital who helped perform lifesaving measures on President Ronald Reagan after he was shot during an assassination attempt in 1981, died June 24, two days after his 84th birthday. He died at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital of complications from an infection, said his son Christopher Giordano. Dr. Giordano, a vascular surgeon who had previously worked at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, joined the staff at GW Hospital in 1976. One of his first responsibilities was to revamp the hospital’s emergency department. “You don’t know how bad the system was in the 1970s,” he told The Washington Post in 2012. “There was no 911. There were no trained ambulances. There was nothing.” Drawing on his experience as an Army doctor and from studying other hospitals, including the University of Maryland’s Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, Dr. Giordano organized a new trauma unit at GW Hospital. He oversaw everything from facilities and equipment to ambulance services to staffing and, perhaps most important, procedures to be followed by emergency medical teams. In 1979, the American College of Surgeons certified the unit as a Level I trauma center, providing the highest level of surgical care to trauma patients. That preparation proved to be crucial when the hospital received perhaps its most urgent case on the afternoon of March 30, 1981. After addressing labor groups, Reagan was leaving the Washington Hilton near Dupont Circle at about 2:30 p.m. when six shots were fired in sudden succession. Several people were wounded and fell to the sidewalk. It was unclear if Reagan had been struck, but Secret Service agent Jerry Parr pushed him into the presidential limousine and climbed in the back seat with him. Reagan complained of a pain in his chest and had blood on his lips.

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