Tennessee woman recalls attack on Pope

Rose Hall was shot in the arm in a 1981 assassination attempt on the Pope. Both survived the shooting and the pontiff later publicly forgave Mehmet Ali Agca for trying to kill him.

As the Pope’s funeral approached this week, Hall recalled how she was shot during the attack.

“It was very painful,” she said. “I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

She was visiting Rome and standing on a chair to photograph the Pope as he passed by when the assassination attempt took place.

Hall said she does not remember hearing the shots, but recalls being knocked off her chair and feeling a burning in her elbow.

The Pope was taken for treatment at the Vatican and Hall to a local hospital, where she stayed for 10 days and where her elbow was reconstructed. Nearly 24 years later, however, she still cannot straighten it completely.

Immediately after her release, Hall and her mother were able to meet with the Pope for a few minutes in his hospital room.

They exchanged pleasantries and get-well wishes.