Name Arthur Vidrine Role Physician | Education Tulane University | |
Arthur Vidrine was a physician from Ville Platte, the seat of Evangeline Parish in south Louisiana, who was best known for having operated on Democratic U.S. Senator Huey Pierce Long, Jr., after Long was shot on September 8, 1935, in the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge, presumably by another young physician, Carl A. Weiss.
A veteran of World War I, Vidrine was educated at Tulane University in New Orleans, the University of Oxford (where he was a Rhodes Scholar), and at hospitals in London and Paris.
Then Governor Long first appointed Vidrine superintendent of Charity Hospital in New Orleans. Then in May 1931, Long named Vidrine dean of the newly established Louisiana State University Medical School in New Orleans. Long passed up several more experienced doctors to select Vidrine, a Long political loyalist who had been a practicing physician for just four years. At the time, Vidrine was described as a "huge 200-pound man with a puffy face and grayish hair."
After Senator Long was shot, Vidrine performed an operation to repair two small wounds in the colon. He then sutured the abdomen closed. Two surgical experts who had been called from New Orleans to operate on Long were delayed by an automobile accident. Vidrine was later criticized by other doctors for having failed to recognize a kidney wound that caused internal bleeding and which ultimately led to Long's death.However, due to the lack of technology at the time, it was easier to make that mistake. He also operated under extreme pressure and was unable to operate well with the added stress of it being the governor and having everyone watch him.
According to historian Richard D. White, Jr.:
"Vidrine . . . talented but inexperienced . . . sewed Huey up after the hour-long operation, but his patient deteriorated. Still bleeding internally, probably from a damaged kidney, Huey lapsed into and out of a coma. When the surgeons finally arrived from New Orleans, they recognized that he need another operation but decided he was too weak to undergo the trauma. Five blood transfusions helped little.
"With no hope of Huey's survival, his family and a few close political allies gathered at his bedside. Just after four on Tuesday morning and thirty-one hours after being shot, Huey Long, worshipped by tens of thousands of Louisianans and despised by tens of thousands more, thrashed briefly in his oxygen tent, took one last labored breath, and died."
Vidrine left New Orleans due to the mishap and resided in Ville Platte, Louisiana with his family. He now has one remaining child of 3, his eldest daughter and child. His family moved back to New Orleans while he lived in Ville Platte, visiting each other often.