Buck Barrow - Hospital

Hospital

His doctors commented in their report on how clean Buck's head wound was, given the circumstances. On arrival Buck was generally lucid and told doctors that aspirin helped the pain in his head and the only real pain he felt was from his other gunshot wounds, particularly the one in his back. That bullet, doctors discovered, had entered his back, ricocheted off a rib and lodged in his chest wall close to the pleural cavity. Because he was in such a weakened state—his limbs had grown paralyzed from another bullet wound and his temperature would not lower from 105—his doctors expected he would develop pneumonia from the surgery on his chest. They predicted that that or infection of his head wound would kill him in a few days.

Lawmen visited him in the hospital to get his final statements. Though doctors kept him numb with opiates, they also injected him with stimulants at least twice, that he might answer questions. "Due to the lack of medical attention," an interrogator noted, "the wound in Barrow's head gave off such an offensive odor that it was with utmost difficulty that one could remain within several feet of him." He agreed with Deputy Red Salyers that he had shot and killed Marshal Humphrey in Arkansas. He was able to chat with the doctor, who asked him, "Where are you wanted by the law?" "Wherever I've been," replied Buck.