Joseph Giordano, who as the lead trauma surgeon at George Washington University Hospital helped save the life of President Ronald Reagan after he was shot outside the Washington Hilton in 1981, died on June 24. He was 84.

His son Christopher said the death, at MedStar Georgetown hospital in Washington, was from complications of an infection.

A little after 3 p.m. on March 30, 1981, Dr. Giordano was examining a patient on his hospital’s sixth floor when an announcement came over the loudspeaker calling him to the emergency room.

It was only when he got down there, and through a scrum of Secret Service officers, that he realized the purpose of the call. And it was only after he and his team cut open the president’s suit, revealing a hole below his left armpit, that they realized that Mr. Reagan had been shot.

Just minutes earlier, and not far from the hospital, the president had been exiting the Hilton hotel after giving a speech to union representatives when John Hinckley Jr. approached him on the sidewalk and fired six shots from his .22-caliber revolver.

The last shot ricocheted off the presidential limousine and hit Mr. Reagan. Two more shots hit Timothy McCarthy, a Secret Service officer, and James S. Brady, the White House spokesman, both of whom were also taken to George Washington.