Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Deaver states that the note President Reagan wrote while unable to speak, asking if anyone else had been injured in the assassination attempt on him, would become historically important because Reagan was the only president to survive being shot. Though not a sitting president at the time of the attack, former president and Bull Moose Party candidate Theodore Roosevelt was wounded by a gunshot on October 14, 1912. Like Reagan, Roosevelt was wounded on the left side of his chest, when a bullet struck him, passing through an eyeglasses case and a folded 50 page speech he was carrying. The bullet did not penetrate to his lung. Roosevelt continued with his scheduled speech and carried the bullet in his chest the rest of his life.
