In a memo from Rep. Ronny L. Jackson, R-Texas, posted on Truth Social on Saturday, one week after an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life, the former White House physician and friend said he’s been checking the wound to the former president’s ear daily.
Jackson wrote that a bullet passed “less than a quarter of an inch from entering his head,” striking the top of Trump’s right ear. “The bullet track produced a 2 centimeter wide wound that extended down to the cartilaginous surface of the ear.” Jackson noted initial significant bleeding, followed by marked swelling that has since resolved.
The wound, he wrote, did not require stitches, though a dressing was needed because it bled intermittently.
Standing at the podium last Thursday night to accept the Republican nomination for president, Trump recounted what he said doctors told him about the bullet that came alarmingly close to killing him the previous Saturday.
“There’s an interesting statistic, the ears are the bloodiest part. If something happens with the ears, they bleed more than any other part of the body. For whatever reason the doctors told me that,” he said.
How much does an injured ear bleed?
There’s no doubt from photographs that the former president’s ear bled quite a bit initially and that it was a shocking sight, given the circumstances. But as one trauma doctor told Deseret News, the ear actually isn’t the part of the body that bleeds the most. Not even close.
Dr. Toby Ennis, medical director of trauma at University of Utah Health, said that structures composed of cartilage “are more prone to infection precisely because they have a relatively poorer blood flow. It only requires a rudimentary knowledge of anatomy and physiology to deduce that the claim that the ears bleed more than any part of the body is false.”
Instead, he said, “the lung, heart, spleen, liver, kidney, colon, intestines and femur as well as any named artery or vein are just a few examples of parts of the body that bleed more than the ear precisely because there is a greater flow of blood through these structures.”
None of that says the ear doesn’t bleed. But as PBS reported, “other parts of the upper body might bleed more from an external injury.”
That article quoted Dr. Céline Gounder, a physician, senior fellow at KFF and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News, who told PolitiFact in an email that “the scalp is perhaps the most ‘bloody’ part of the body if injured or cut. But, in general, the head/neck is the ‘bloodiest’ part of the body. The ear is part of that.”
She said that “an injury similar to what Trump sustained to the ear would bleed less if inflicted on a part of the body below the neck.”
Adding the words “surface wound” or “superficial” would come closer to making the claim accurate. The scalp, face and neck are among body areas where surface wounds bleed the most.