Do you remember R. Bud Dwyer, the politician from PA who gave himself a permanent headache on live TV?

Question

There's footage of it online.It's pretty gruesome I wouldn't recommend watching it.The only reason I did is I was trying to get a hint of what this guy was thinkin'in those moments before he blew his freakin' brains out.Remember when that happened?

Answer 1

Yes I do remember that infamous press conference. I was just a child living in the Pittsburgh Pa area. The actual event was broadcast live on only one Pittsburgh TV station (ch 11 WPXI our NBC affiliate). It only aired the one time. I was shocked to actually see something like that on TV. If I remember it correctly he was giving a news conference to admit he had been involved with some political wrong-doings. The conference started, then he pulled a gun out of a manila envelope he was holding, warned the press to "look away if you don't want to see this" then ended his own life on live TV.
You really do have to wonder what he was thinking to do such a desperate thing in front of the general public. One thing that kinda bothered me is none of the press even tried to get the gun away from him. You could hear a few of them saying "Don't do it Bud" right before he pulled the trigger, but nobody attempted to stop him. Perhaps they were just in shock to actually experience something like that. Or maybe they were scared for their own lives, not knowing what this guy was going to do with this gun.
The sad thing is that he must have been thinking of exactly how to do that before he actually did. You just don't on the spur of the moment hide a gun in an envelope and then blow your head off instead of standing up, and taking whatever punishment that was coming his way.