By Staff
Stacy Linton Rollins Jr., 83, died of cancer July 3, 2001, at the Washington Home hospice.
He was a native of Atmore and a resident of Chevy Chase, Md.
Rollins, an emeritus clinical professor of neurosurgery at Georgetown University medical school, ran a private practice in Washington into the 1990s.
He was a college classmate of former Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace, and in 1972 he led the team that removed a bullet from Wallace's spine after an assassination attempt. Wallace was shot while campaigning for the Democratic presidential primary in Maryland. He suffered chest and abdominal injuries that received priority over the bullet lodged in his spine.
After Wallace was stabilized, Dr. Rollins was called in to lead the June 18 surgery at Holy Cross Hospital that successfully removed the bullet. Wallace remained paralyzed from the waist down.
In 1975, at a news conference, Dr. Rollins declared Wallace fit to run again for president.
Survivors include his wife of 49 years Beatrice Harris Rollins of Chevy Chase; two sons, Stacy III, of Portland, Ore., and James Hugh, of Simpsonville, S.C.; two daughters, Mary T. Placanica of Silver Spring, Md., and Elizebeth Sandidge of Los Angeles; a sister, Elise Nyhart of Mobile; a brother, Kenneth Rollins of Ruther Glen, Va.; and a grandson.