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"My recollection is it was indicated to us that the President is dead, the hospital has to perform certain functions, and the law must be met, no matter who it is, at this moment. In my own mind, when they said autopsy, I realized we were talking not about hours, but perhaps even days, which was an impossible situation for Mrs. Kennedy." "You Can't Do That!" Angered O'DonHeH decided to ignore the demands of the Dallas officials. "We went in and took the body out," said O'Donnell. "Mrs. Kennedy stood right behind it, I think totally unaware of the problems that were then existing. We pushed the casket out through the hall. This first gentleman that had come in, who, I presume, was from the coroner's office, shouted very loudly, 'You can't do that! You can't leave here now!' Nobody paid any attention to him. We pushed out through another set of swinging doors. I remember a Catholic priest was between this and the doorway, and was praying. It was most disconcerting because we were concerned at all times that some moment they would say stop, and I hated to think what might happen to Mrs. Kennedy if she had to go back and go through this all over again. So we brushed them all aside and came out the same way we had come in, through the same doors." In the presidential plane, O'Donnell urged the crew to take off quickly because "all of us were under the assumption or apprehension that at some moment we either might not be granted clearance to take off, or that the hospital may have in some way gotten the police to intercept us—the difficulty of that to Mrs. Kennedy was incalculable.
I was in a highly desperate strait to get that airplane in the air and back to Washington."