Did Parkland docs really examine JFK's skull?
gar...@my-deja.com
Gerald Posner and John McAdams have staked out a firm position on a key
question: "DID THE DALLAS DOCTORS REALLY HAVE A CHANCE TO EXAMINE JFK’S
SKULL WOUND?" Their answer is an emphatic "NO!" Their view is that JFK
was lying supine, the backside of his head on a stretcher, and so no
one at Parkland ever got a decent look at it. That, in a nutshell,
explains the "mistake" so many Parkland doctors made, or so they say.
But is it true they didn't actually get a look at it?
As I wrote in Murder in Dealey Plaza:
"Because the autopsy photographs show no wound in the rear of JFK’s
skull, there has been speculation to explain how Parkland physicians,
including neurosurgeons, could have believed they saw one there. The
Boston Globe reported that, “some (Parkland) doctors doubted the extent
to which a wound to the rear of the head would have been visible since
the President was lying supine with the back of his head on a hospital
cart.”
"The Globe immediately refuted that speculation, reporting, “But
others, like (Dr. Richard) Dulaney and (neurosurgeon Dr. Robert)
Grossman, said the head at some point was lifted up, thereby exposing
the rear wound.”95
Similarly, author David Lifton reported that Parkland emergency nurse
Audrey Bell, who couldn’t see JFK’s head wound though she was standing
on the right side, asked Dr. Perry, “‘Where was the wound?’ Perry
pointed to the back of the President’s head and moved the head slightly
in order to show her the wound.”96 During sworn interviews with the
JFK Review Board in 1998, Dr. Paul Peters reported, “(anesthesiologist
Dr. Marion T.) Jenkins said, ‘Boys, before you think about opening the
chest, you’d better step up here and look at this brain.’ And so at
that point I did step around Dr. Baxter and looked in the President’s
head … .”97
The ARRB’s Gunn interviewed neurosurgeon Robert Grossman, M.D. on March
21, 1997, reporting, “(H)e (Grossman) and Kemp Clark (Chairman of
Neurosurgery at Parkland) (sic) together lifted President Kennedy’s
head so as to be able to observe the damage to the President’s head.”98
**************
So MAYBE McAdams and other loyalists are right that witnesses like
Charles Baxter,MD embellished his own contemporaneous account, claiming
he saw cerebellum and occipital bone on 11/22/63, when he "couldn't
possibly have" seen any such thing. But one would be reluctant to argue
that the chairman of the neurosurgery department, Kemp Clark, MD, would
have been as sloppy as a "mere" resident like Baxter about an injury
involving his area of specialization, the skull. Especially since he
was the senior treating physician, a man of enormous experience with
such injuries, and the man who signed JFK's death certificate.
The record suggests that not only is it true that they DID get a good
look at JFK's skull, but that Posner's assertion at p. 235 that
witnesses' earliest accounts are most likely to be reliable is right.
And that, ironically, even includes Baxter's earliest report of seeing
cerebellum and occipital bone - for that's exactly what the
neurosurgery professor said he saw!*
Gary
95 Bradlee, Ben. Dispute on JFK assassination evidence persists. Boston
Globe, 6/21/81, p. A-23.
96 Lifton, David. Best Evidence. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1988, p.704.
97 ARRB depositions of Parkland witnesses, p. 30.
98 ARRB MD #185. ARRB interview with Dr. Robert G. Grossman, 3/21/97.
* Just for fun, let's compare Baxter's earliest descriptions of JFK's
skull injuries with Kemp Clark's: (I know, loyalists always want to
throw out what Baxter originally said, despite the well-known reasons
there are NOT to do that with witnesses' earliest statements. But just
for fun, let's give it a go anyhow.)
CHARLES RUFUS BAXTER, MD In a long-hand notes prepared on 11-22-63, and
published in the Warren Report (p. 523), Baxter wrote, "...the right
temporal and occipital bones were missing (emphasis added) and the
brain was lying on the table..." (WR:523). Oddly, as noted by David
Lifton (BE p. 330), when asked by Arlan Specter to read his own hand-
written report into the record before the Warren Commission, Baxter’s
words are recorded exactly as he wrote them, except for the above
sentence. Baxter read that sentence for the Warren Commission
as, "...the right temporal and parietal bones were missing. (emphasis
added)...". (WC-V6:44)
A few minutes before substituting “parietal” for “occipital’, Baxter
had described the head wound ambiguously saying,
initially, "...literally the right side of his head had been blown off.
With this and the observation that the cerebellum was present...." (WC-
V6:41) ^^^^^^^^^^^
KEMP CLARK, MD, Professor and Director of Neurological Surgery at
Parkland:
In an undated note apparently written contemporaneously at Parkland, he
described the President's skull wound as: "...in the occipital region
of the skull...Through the head wound, blood and brain were
extruding...There was a large wound in the right occipitoparietal
region, from which profuse bleeding was occurring...There was
considerable loss of scalp and bone tissue. Both cerebral and
cerebellar tissue were extruding from the wound." (Warren Commission
Exhibit #392)
In a hand-written hospital note dated 11-22-63, Dr. Clark wrote, "a
large 3 x3 cm remnant of cerebral tissue present....there was a smaller
amount of cerebellar tissue present also....There was a large wound
beginning in the right occiput extending into the parietal
region....Much of the skull appeared gone at the brief examination … .”
(Exhibit #392: WC V17:9-10)
While under oath before the Warren Commission's Arlen Specter, Clark
described his findings upon arrival to the emergency room, "I then
examined the wound in the back of the President's head. This was a
large, gaping wound in the right posterior part, with cerebral and
cerebellar tissue being damaged and exposed." (WC--V6:20) (emphasis
added. Later, Clark again located the skull wound for Specter, "...in
the right occipital region of the President's skull, from which
considerable blood loss had occurred which stained the back of his
head, neck and upper shoulders." (WC--V6:29) (While McA and other
loyalists can't buy Clark, the Warren Commission did. The Report
stated, “Dr. Clark, who most closely observed the head wound, described
a large, gaping wound in the right rear part of the head....” (WR, p.
54)
Despite all the caterwaulling and sniping of McAdams, "Jerry" and
others, Baxter and Clark seem to have independently described a very
similar wound immediately after the murder, when their memories were
freshest. And it's pretty clear that they DID get a good look at it.
Gary
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
rickh...@my-deja.com
gar...@my-deja.com wrote:
Dr. Aguilar-
You make a very good case here. I am no doctor, just a lowly
electronics engineer, but I can read testimony. I believe the
conclusive factor is the consistancy between the doctors initial
reports from Parkland and the great majority of reports by the doctors
and technicians at Bethesda. Dr. Robert Karnei stated "Most of the
bone that was missing was destroyed in the back of the head." Dr. John
Ebersole, a radiologist, stated "The front of the body, except for a
very slight bruise above the right eye on the forehead, was absolutely
intact. It was the back of the head that was blown off." Drs. Boswell,
Humes and Finck signed a report that placed the wound in the area of
the parietal bone and extended into the temporal and occipital. There
are numerous other examples of Bethesda personnel placing the wound in
the rear, or right-rear, of the head. These Bethesda witnesses
strongly corroborate the testimony of Dr. Clark that you have cited
above.
Rick Holtman
Paul Seaton
<gar...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:91pn7e$e9n$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
>
> As I wrote in Murder in Dealey Plaza:
>
>
> "Because the autopsy photographs show no wound in the rear of JFK's
> skull, ........."
Just wanted to jump in here & say that of course the well known 'back of the
head' & 'back' photos *do not show the rear skull at all*.
Consequently they can hardly be said to prove anything about the condition
of the rear *skull*.
Similarly they do not show the rear *scalp*, since the head wasn't shaved
(shaven?).
So they are not too informative about the state of the scalp there either.
What they actually *do* show is a large amount of hair, apparently intact.
So from these pictures we can confidently conclude that the rear *hair* was
(more or less) intact. ( :
The only photo which apparently *does* show the right rear *skull* itself is
F8 (if the HSCA FPP have it correctly oriented, which seems very likely).
It shows that a large percentage of right rear skull is missing.
Since this picture was taken *post* brain removal, it allows two possible
explanations.
1). The bone was blown clean off the head in DPlaza.
2). The bone there was removed (with no sawing...) in order to remove the
brain.
The xrays (taken before the brain was taken out) show the bone there
present, tho' fragmented.
So 2). seems to be the explanation.
--
® Þ§
art:¿
http://users.breathemail.net/paulseaton/
jfk:¿
http://graffiti.virgin.net/paul.seaton1/jfk/
rickh...@my-deja.com
Paul-
You seem to be describing a photograph that hides the rear skull
damage. This just won't work. The majority of medical experts, those
who actually viewed the body and not just the artwork, described a
large gaping wound in the rear, or right-rear, of the head with the
brain protruding. Either all of these doctors and technicians were
wrong or there is something seriously wrong with the photographs. Your
explanation that all that hair is covering up rear skull damage flies
in the face of all the evidence and testimony we have, with the
exception of the artwork itself. Remember that Boswell insisted
repeatedly to the HSCA questioners that there was skull bone missing in
the back of the head. He has never varied from his position that the
large wound extended so far back that he was unable to complete the
entrance wound until a fragment was brought to the autopsy room late in
the autopsy. Boswell explained to the ARRB that that is what he
attempting to depict with his drawing on the autopsy facesheet. He
insisted to the ARRB that the location of the entrance wound was
accurately described in the autopst report as being about an inch to
the right and slightly above the EOP, and your explanation does not
account for the fact that this protruding wound described by so many
does not appear on the back of the head photographs.
Rick
>
> --
> ® Þ§
>
> art:¿
> http://users.breathemail.net/paulseaton/
> jfk:¿
> http://graffiti.virgin.net/paul.seaton1/jfk/
>
>
jlwu...@my-deja.com
rickh...@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <91pn7e$e9n$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> gar...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> Dr. Aguilar-
>
> You make a very good case here. I am no doctor, just a lowly
> electronics engineer, but I can read testimony. I believe the
> conclusive factor is the consistancy between the doctors initial
> reports from Parkland and the great majority of reports by the doctors
> and technicians at Bethesda. Dr. Robert Karnei stated "Most of the
> bone that was missing was destroyed in the back of the head." Dr.
John
> Ebersole, a radiologist, stated "The front of the body, except for a
> very slight bruise above the right eye on the forehead, was absolutely
> intact. It was the back of the head that was blown off." Drs.
Boswell,
> Humes and Finck signed a report that placed the wound in the area of
> the parietal bone and extended into the temporal and occipital. There
> are numerous other examples of Bethesda personnel placing the wound in
> the rear, or right-rear, of the head. These Bethesda witnesses
> strongly corroborate the testimony of Dr. Clark that you have cited
> above.
>
> Rick Holtman
Right. Some of the drs. looked at the wound very closely. Even if you
accept McAdams absurd theory, there's no way the drs could have missed
a gaping whole on the top of Kennedy's head. McAdams would have us
believe that the skull somehow closed up over the wound so that it was
undetectable. Then everyone assumed that there was a wound in the back
of the head without examination. Does McAdams even try to explain
the "mistakes" made at the autopsy? What about the "mistakes" the HSCA
made regarding the testimony of the autopsy personel, lying about their
testomony. They too saw a large wound in back of the head.
--
A shocking crime was committed on the unscupulous initiative of few
individuals, with the blessing of more, and amid the passive
acquiescence of all.
Tacitus (c. 55–c. 120), Roman historian, on the assassination of
Emperor Galba.
Paul Seaton
<rickh...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:91thkd$hg2$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Rick,
OK the photos are forged. ( :
Whoops!
Let me retract that...
There are certain photos of the *front* flap folded *up*.....I mean the so
called 'superior profiles'...which show no apparent 'hole' at the right
temple.
Yet we have cinematic proof there *was* a hole there at one point. (The z
film).
Therefore we conclude, if we follow your reasoning, that the superior
profiles photos are *also* forged.
Since the hole we all know *was* there (from the z film) is not there (on
the superior profiles). Go check if you don't believe me.
(Incidentally it *is* there again on the back of the head pictures. Just to
prove the point that this kind of injury can be infuriatingly puzzling. And
it's curious that those who so cunningly removed the flap from the superior
profiles forgot to remove it from the boh pictures.).
The right temple situation is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.
The wound is there. Then it's not. Then it's there again. Weird.
So it is in fact demonstrably possible to have a large gaping hole in the
right temple area of the head *and no bone missing whatever from the right
temple area of the head* (I'm being loose here with my definition of the
exact area involved . I mean the area that should be 'filled' by the flap
visible at the right temple on the boh pictures) that bone still being
stuck beneath the the loose scalp.
What is true at the right front appears to be also true at the right rear.
So your dichotomy "Either all of these doctors and technicians were wrong or
there is something seriously wrong with the photographs." though it appears
like a perfect dilemma actually isn't.
The doctors & the photographs are *both* right.
There are any number of ways in which the scalp beneath the hair in the boh
pictures can be ripped, torn..whatever.
Since the area is plastered over with hair..we'll never know for sure
exactly what the state of the rear scalp was.
(And he'd been lying on it for 7 hours or so while the blood in the hair
dried so at Bethesda it's going to be pretty well stuck together.)
But there is no neccessary contradiction between the boh photos & the
witness statements & the xrays.
In fact O'Neill specifically describes a flap at the right rear to the ARRB.
And McClelland (from memory) describes the bones there 'sprung open', which
is exactly what I'm saying. As the front right was 'sprung open'.
You will agree that the Parkland doctors didn't by and large see or make
much of the huge flap at the right temple.
Why not?
Has the z film been faked up? (I think not.)
Are they lying?
I think not.
What's the explanation?
A flap of scalp and bone, open at z 314, closed up at Parkland.
Analogous exactly to the right rear of the head , open at Parkland, closed
up in the boh pictures.
If the xrays actually showed the right rear to be *intact*, then there would
be a very serious problem.
They don't.
Your
> explanation that all that hair is covering up rear skull damage flies
> in the face of all the evidence and testimony we have, with the
> exception of the artwork itself. Remember that Boswell insisted
> repeatedly to the HSCA questioners that there was skull bone missing in
> the back of the head.
I think Boswell was talking about the 'large defect' which is simply the
hole in the head when all the loose fragments of bone had been peeled away.
That defect *did* apparently extend down to the area of the eop.
This is backed up by the xrays which show 'fragmented' bone (ie removable
bone) down to the same area.
He has never varied from his position that the
> large wound extended so far back that he was unable to complete the
> entrance wound until a fragment was brought to the autopsy room late in
> the autopsy.
I personally don't think they were *ever* able to complete that entry wound.
(Compare their mutually contradictory descriptions of it).
I am not doubting that after the brain was removed (and before Finck
arrived) there was a hole in the right side of the head from the middle of
the frontal bone back to around the eop...otherwise I don't see how they got
the brain out without having to do any sawing. If the back of the head was
ever reconstructed after that time it was with bone that *they themselves*
had previously removed to get the brain out.
Boswell may be mis-remembering where those frags came from. Humes nor Finck
mentions any such reconstruction of the 'entry' at the eop being neccessary.
Boswell explained to the ARRB that that is what he
> attempting to depict with his drawing on the autopsy facesheet. He
> insisted to the ARRB that the location of the entrance wound was
> accurately described in the autopst report as being about an inch to
> the right and slightly above the EOP,
Then the xrays are forged and the photos are forged.
There are so many impossibilities associated with that apparently simple
sounding project that it is very very difficult to give the idea the time of
day.
Mantik himself tells me he knows of no way to 'replace' absent bone on an
xray so beautifully that it appears real.
No one has ever done it, to my knowledge.
There are huge & to my knowledge insoluble problems producing forgeries that
hold up viewed in stereo.
No one has ever accomplished it, to my knowledge.
I think there was an almightly foul up with entrance wound, that goes back
to Finck and his desire to find some incontravertible evidence *in the bone
itself* of a bullet striking from the rear.
But all that is another story.
and your explanation does not
> account for the fact that this protruding wound described by so many
> does not appear on the back of the head photographs.
Then how do you account for the fact that the huge protruding wound on the z
film at the right temple does *not* appear on the superior profiles, Rick?
We could conclude that the z film was faked . We could conclude that the
superior profiles were faked to hide a wound that the z film clearly shows &
that is in plain view in the boh pictures...
(Ie the conspiraotors were very dumb animals..)
Or we could conclude the obvious.
There's a slab of scalp with bone stuck beneath it there that is loose on
the head.
Being mobile, it's appearance changes over time.
The situation at the right rear is entirely analogous.
You have witnesses who saw it open. And photos of it closed.
You conclude that the witnesses must be lying or the photos must beforged.
I think that's premature. ( :
And the obvious explanation (loose bone at the rear held together by scalp)
is capable of squaring all the evidence whout demanding any
photographic/xray experts did anything fundamentally impossible.
Which is another reason why I'd prefer it as an explanation.
--
® Þ§
>
> Rick
>
>