#2 He Almost Died Before Becoming President
While still living with his family in their Brooklyn Home, 2 year old Kennedy contracted scarlet fever. He received treatment and recovered for six weeks at a hospital in Boston, then spent yet another six weeks recuperating in a guesthouse in Poland Spring, Maine.
Following his graduation from Harvard University in 1942, Kennedy joined the Navy and was assigned to the South Pacific division to lead the PT-109, an 80-foot patrol boat.
He and his team were sent to monitor a channel in recently-conquered American land in August 1943 after the Japanese attacked their base. Their ship was idle, and radar was not used. They didn’t know they were on a Japanese destroyer’s path until it was too late. The survivors spent a few days on an island, and luckily, they were eventually rescued.
In 1954, roughly two years after Kennedy was chosen to serve in the Senate, physicians advised him to have back surgery to connect his spinal disks with a steel plate. Unfortunately, he experienced a severe urinary tract infection following the surgery and went into a coma. Nobody expected him to live, but surprisingly he actually did.
However, his recovery was long and difficult. After exiting the hospital, Kennedy rested at his parents’ house for the following five months.
