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The bus driver who rushed alongside Robert F. Kennedy and rocked the New York senator moments after he was shot dead in 1968, died this week, the newspaper reported on Thursday.
Juan Romero died Monday in Modesto, California, at the age of 68, after apparently having suffered a heart attack a few days ago, told Los Angeles Times his long-time friend, San Jose TV presenter , Rigo Chacon.
More than five decades ago, just after midnight, on June 5, 1968, Kennedy, who had just won the California presidential primary, turned to his fans in the Ballroom at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Leaving the ballroom, Kennedy cut the kitchen and Romero – a 17-year-old bus boy who had met the senator the night before offering room service – stood up to shake his hand.
That's when Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old gunman, used his .22-caliber revolver, firing Kennedy three times, including once in the head.
The teenager knelt to rock Kennedy fatally injured while he was dying on the floor. He held the senator's head bled so that she did not touch the floor of the kitchen and placed a rosary in his hand.
"I could see his lips move, so I put my ear close to his lips and I heard him say," Is everyone all right? I said, "Yes, everyone is fine," Romero recalled to StoryCorps earlier this year.
"I could feel a steady stream of blood flowing through my fingers," said Romero. "I remember that I had a rosary in my shirt pocket and I pulled it out, thinking that he would need it much more than me." I wrapped it around his right hand and then took him away.
Kennedy died at the hospital a few hours later at 42 years old.
For decades, Romero said that he was haunted by the moment, which was captured on a disturbing photo. He wondered if he could have done anything to stop Kennedy from being shot at and wondered what would have happened if he had not asked for a handshake.
"I had the impression of having to ask Kennedy to forgive me for not being able to stop those bullets from hurting him," he told StoryCorps.
Every year, Romero used to leave flowers in front of a monument at Kennedy in San Jose Park to mark the assassination. Romero never forgot how, when he offered room service to Kennedy, the presidential candidate held both his hands and thanked him.
"I will never forget the handshake and the look … looking straight at you in the piercing eyes that said," I am one of you. We are good, "said Romero. "He was not looking at my skin, he was not looking at my age … he was looking at me like an American."
In 2010, Romero went to Arlington National Cemetery to visit Kennedy's Tomb – and bought a costume for the occasion.
"When I wore the costume and stood in front of his grave, I felt a bit like the first day I met him," he said. "I felt important. I felt American. And I felt good. "
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