Dad's Exciting Day

On May 14, 1935, dad was accidently shot by a high school friend. Dad's version was that his friend was fooling around with the gun when it went off, unlike what the article said. The rest of the story of what happened is like a badly written comedy. 

After being shot dad was taken to the hospital and a policeman was sent to notify dads parents. This what happened when grandma answered the door- LAPD Officer, "Are you Mrs. Wall?" Grandma, "Yes." LAPD Officer, "Your son has been shot, good day." Then he turned around and left. Grandma didn't even know which of her three boys was shot, how bad it was or were he was. When Grandpa heard he spent the next hour or so calling every hospital in the phone book until he finally located dad.

While this was going on, the doctors were trying to locate the bullet which, unknown to them at the time, had traveled from his front along one of his ribs and was logged in his back. Dad didn't make things easier when he refused to let the nurse remove his cross necklace when they removed his clothes to prep him for an operation. As dad was a minor, the doctors wouldn't operate without his parents permission. That night Grandpa and Grandma finally arrived at the correct hospital and wanted to transfer dad to a Catholic Hospital, Good Samaritan. The operation the next day went fine, except that a small piece of wool from dad's sweater remained in the wound which started to swell and fester the day after dad came home from the hospital. None of the hospital staff had informed Grandma that this might happen, so after more frantic calls to Grandpa, and the hospital, dad went back to have the wound reopened, cleaned, and closed up again.

Dad at this time was a beach kid and good swimmer, he and Uncles Jack and Dick would workout at Santa Monica and swim around the pier.  What the doctors didn't tell dad, or didn't know, was that when the bullet cruised around his rib it left scar tissue on his muscles. So one cold day when dad and Jack were swimming around the pier dad's scar tissue "froze up" and he lost all sensation in his right arm and side. If Jack hadn't been with him dad would have drowned.

Another side effect was that the scar tissue prevented dad from fully raising his right arm above his head.  This did not prevent him from being drafted in 1942, or passing basic training.  But when he joined Officer Candidate School (OCS) one of the training sergeants asked why he wasn't lifting his right arm as high as his left. Dad explained to him about the muscle damage and the sergeant promptly told him he couldn't be in OSC and had to drop down to the enlisted ranks. Dad's response was pure dad, "If I'm healthy enough to be an enlisted man, I'm healthy enough to be an officer. So either discharge me or let me complete OSC training." This must have impressed the sergeant as dad completed OCS and served the rest of World War II as a 2nd and then 1st Lieutenant.