WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump is doing well and required no stitches after a gunshot at his campaign rally last weekend grazed his ear, his former White House doctor said in a memo released Saturday by Trump’s campaign.
The bullet passed less than a quarter inch from the former president’s head, causing a two-centimeter-wide wound and “significant bleeding, followed by marked swelling of the entire upper ear,” Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) said in a letter issued Saturday. But “given the broad and blunt nature of the wound itself, no sutures were required,” Jackson wrote in a public memo.
Jackson added the wound is healing properly, though there is still intermittent bleeding.
Experts in trauma medicine told STAT earlier this week that the ear was likely to heal and fill in without stitches. “The ear is an interesting little appendage,” Matthew Mostofi, associate chief of emergency medicine at Tufts Medical Center, said in an interview. “It’s skin over cartilage and there’s not a lot of blood supply.”
The update on Trump’s health comes after a week of public appearances at the Republican National Committee’s campaign convention, where Trump appeared with a large bandage on his right ear and told attendees that the bullet came perilously close to killing him.
“The amazing thing is that prior to the shot, if I had not moved my head at that very last instant, the assassin’s bullet would have perfectly hit its mark, and I would not be here tonight. We would not be together,” he said in Milwaukee, Wis.
Jackson’s letter landed one day after retired infectious disease official Anthony Fauci told CNN that, “From what I’m seeing, the way he’s acting now, and what his physicians’ reports are, it seems to have been a superficial wound to the ear.”
The former National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Disease director said: “I don’t think there is much more to it.”
CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta penned an op ed on Friday pressing for clear answers on the extent of Trump’s injuries. “A full public assessment of Trump’s injuries is necessary, for both the former president’s own health and the clarity it can provide for voters about the recovery of the man who could become president of the United States once again,” Gupta wrote.
“Gunshot blasts near the head can cause injuries that aren’t immediately noticeable, such as bleeding in or on the brain, damage to the inner ear or even psychological trauma,” he added.
Fauci on CNN cautioned that neither he nor Gupta were directly treating the former president and could only discuss what had been released publicly, but that it was “very likely” physicians did brain imaging after the injury and that would be “a reasonable thing to do.”
Jackson said that the initial emergency treatment by staff at Butler Memorial Hospital in Pennsylvania included a CT scan of Trump’s head to look for additional injuries, and that “he will have further evaluations, including a comprehensive hearing exam, as needed.”
“I want to thank them for their outstanding care,” he wrote.
Jackson’s update on Trump’s health comes amid lingering questions about the Secret Services’ response to the threat and the extent of the former president’s injuries.
As Trump’s former physician, “I was naturally very concerned, as was the entire world, about his wellbeing,” Jackson wrote. He pledged to “remain at his side” and “provide any medical assistance he needs” during a Michigan rally this weekend.
