Secret Service agent who saved Reagan dies

Jerry Parr, the dedicated Secret Service agent whose quick actions helped save the life of President Ronald Regan after a 1981 assasination attempt, died Friday at a hospital near his home in Washington at the age of 85. He died of congestive heart failure. Parr was in charge of Reagan's detail on March 30, 1981, when a young man with mental problems, John Hinckley Jr., shot the president outside the Washington Hilton. When the shots rang out, Parr pushed Reagan inside the presidential limousine and it sped away for the White House. “When he was about probably six or seven feet from the car, I heard these shots,” Mr. Parr said in a 2013 interview promoting the memoir he wrote with his wife. “I sort of knew what they were, and I’d been waiting for them all of my career, in a way. That’s what every agent waits for, is that.” After Reagan complained of chest pains and showed blood on his lips, Parr redirected the limousine to George Washington Hospital. As it turned out, Reagan had been hit in the chest and was bleeding internally. Doctors later said that any delay would have cost the president his life. In a statement Friday, former first lady Nancy Reagan called Parr "one of my true heroes." "Every Secret Service agent was well aware of what he did for not only the Secret Service, but more importantly, his country," Clancy wrote in a statement on Saturday. Parr was born on Sept. 16, 1930, in Birmingham, Alabama. An Air Force veteran, he joined the Secret Service in 1962. He retired in 1985 and became an ordained minister. He is survived by his wife, Carolyn, and three daughters.