11/22/63 Parkland Medical Reports, the Throat Wound, and the Large Head Wound

[Michael T. Griffith]

I have mentioned the Parkland Hospital medical reports on President Kennedy’s treatment. These reports were written by the Parkland doctors who took part in the treatment of JFK. They were written just hours after Kennedy died, when the events were still fresh in the their minds, and before anyone had a chance to pressure them to change their recollections. The Warren Commission (WC) was nice enough to include these reports in its exhibits. The reports comprise CE 392. Below are some important statements found in those reports.

A few things to keep in mind while you read these excerpts from the reports: Cerebellar tissue, i.e., tissue from the cerebellum, is located only in the lower part of the back of the head, and it is easy to distinguish from other brain tissue. Occipital bone is located only in the back of the back of the head. Occipital bone is the bone in the occiput, which is centered in the back of the skull. The temporal bone is below the parietal bone and borders the occipital region. The majority of the temporal bone is behind the ear, i.e., the majority of it is on what most people would call “the back of the head.”

Dr. Kemp Clark, neurosurgeon:

Two external wounds, one in the lower third of the anterior neck, the other in the occipital region of the skull, were noted. . . .

There was a large wound in the right occipital-parietal 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. (Summary report of Dr. Kemp Clark, 11/22/63, pp. 1-2, CE 392)

COMMENT: Cerebellar tissue could only have extruded from the wound if part of the wound was in the occipital region, so it is no surprise that Dr. Clark said the large wound was in the right occipital-parietal region. His wording suggests that most of the wound was occipital.

Dr. Charles Carrico:

Two wounds were noted. One small penetrating wound of the neck in lower 1/3. The other wound had avulsed the calvarium and shredded brain tissue present and profuse oozing. . . .

. . . wound of the trachea was seen immediately below the larynx. . . .

. . . attempt to control slow oozing from cerebral and cerebellar tissue. . . . (Admission note of Dr. Charles Carrico, 11/22/63, pp. 1-2, CE 392)

COMMENT: If the throat wound was “immediately below the larynx,” then it was above the collar, just as Carrico told the WC.



Dr. Malcolm Perry:

A small wound was noted in the midline of the neck, in the lower third anteriorly. It was exuding blood slowly. A large wound of the right posterior cranium was noted. (Treatment report of Dr. Malcolm Perry, 11/22/63, p. 1, CE 392)

COMMENT: The large was wound in the “right posterior” of the skull.

Dr. Charles Baxter:

The president had a wound in the midline of the neck. . . . wounds of the temporal and occipital bones . . . and the brain was lying on the table. (Admission note of Dr. Charles Baxter, 11/22/63, p. 1, CE 392)

Dr. Robert McClelland:

The president was at that time comatose from a massive gunshot wound of the head and a fragment wound of the trachea. . . .

Cause of death was the massive head and brain injury from a gunshot wound of the left temple. (Admission note of Dr. Robert McClelland, 11/22/63, pp. 1-2, CE 392)

COMMENT: Dr. McClelland probably meant JFK’s right temple, which would have been his “left” temple from McClelland’s perspective. Several other witnesses saw a small wound in the right temple, including the mortician, Tom Robinson. Note, also, that McClelland believed a fragment could have caused the throat wound, so it must have been small.

Dr. Marion T. Jenkins:

There was a great laceration on the right side of the head (temporal and occipital), causing a great defect in the skull plate so that there was herniation and laceration of great areas of the brain, even to the extent that the cerebellum had protruded from the wound. (Statement of Dr. Marion T. Jenkins, 11/22/63, p. 2, CE 392)

COMMENT: Again, part of the large hole was in the occiput, and tissue from the cerebellum, which is located only at the back of the head, protruded from the wound.

Compare these fresh, only-hours-old statements on the large head wound with those of other Parkland medical personnel made a few months later:

Dr. Ronald Jones, Parkland doctor:

. . . he had a large wound in the right posterior side of the head. . . .

There was large defect in the back side of the head as the President lay on the cart with what appeared to be some brain hanging out of this wound with multiple pieces of skull noted with the brain. . . .

The hole [in the throat] was very small and relatively clean cut, as you would see in a bullet that is entering rather than exiting from a patient. (6 H 53-56)

Dr. Gene Akin, Parkland doctor:

The back of the right occipital-parietal portion of his head was shattered, with brain substance extruding. . . .

I assume the right occipital-parietal region was the exit, so to speak, that he had probably been hit on the other side of the head, or at least tangentially in the back of the head. . . .

This [the neck wound] must have been an entrance wound. . . . (6 H 65-67)

Dr. Paul Peters, Parkland doctor:

It was pointed out that an examination of the brain had been done. . . .

We saw the wound of entry in the throat and noted the large occipital wound. . . .

I noticed that there was a large defect in the occiput. . . . (6 H 70-71)

Nurse Patricia Hutton, who helped treat Kennedy:

Mr. Kennedy was bleeding profusely from a wound in the back of his head. . . . A doctor asked me to place a pressure dressing on the head wound. This was no use, however, because of the massive opening on the back of the head. (21 H 216)

Nurse Diana Bowron, who helped treat Kennedy, who packed gauze squares into his head wound, and who wrapped his head in a sheet to prepare the body for the casket:

Mr. SPECTER. You saw the condition of his what?
Miss BOWRON. The back of his head.
Mr. SPECTER. And what was that condition?
Miss BOWRON. Well, it was very bad--you know.
Mr. SPECTER. How many holes did you see?
Miss BOWRON. I just saw one large hole. (6 H 136)

Nurse Margaret Henchliffe, a Parkland nurse who helped treat JFK:

Mr. SPECTER. Did you see any wound anywhere on his body?
Miss HENCHLIFFE. Yes; he was very bloody, his head was very bloody when I saw him at the time.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you ever see any wound in any other part of his body?
Miss HENCHLIFFE. When I first saw him—except his head.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you see any wound on any other part of his body?
Miss HENCHLIFFE. Yes : in the neck.
Mr. SPECTER. Will you describe it, please?
Miss HENCHLIFFE. It was just a little hole in the middle of his neck.
Mr. SPECTER. About how big a hole was it?
Miss HENCHLIFFE. About as big around as the end of my little finger.
Mr. SPECTER. Have you ever had any experience with bullet holes?
Miss HENCHLIFFE. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. And what did that appear to you to be?
Miss HENCHLIFFE. An entrance bullet hole—it looked to me like.
Mr. SPECTER. Could it have been an exit bullet hole?
Miss HENCHLIFFE. I have never seen an exit bullet hole—I don't remember seeing one that looked like that. (6 H 141)

Jackie Kennedy, JFK’s wife, who held his head in her hands on the way to the hospital:

I was trying to hold his hair on. But from the front there was nothing. I suppose there must have been. But from the back you could see, you know, you were trying to hold his hair on, and his skull on. (5 H 180, declassified version—this portion of her testimony was omitted from the published version, but it was “declassified” in 1972)

Clint Hill, the Secret Service agent who jumped onto the back of the limo and got a close-up look at JFK’s large head wound:

Mr. SPECTER. What did you observe as to President Kennedy's condition on arrival at the hospital?
Mr. HILL. The right rear portion of his head was missing. It was lying in the rear seat of the car. His brain was exposed. There was blood and bits of brain all over the entire rear portion of the car. Mrs. Kennedy was completely covered with blood. There was so much blood you could not tell if there had been any other wound or not, except for the one large gaping wound in the right rear portion of the head. (2 H 141)

Agent Hill also saw JFK’s body at the morgue at Bethesda Naval Hospital, and he said the back wound was about 6 inches below the neck line:

Representative BOGGS. May I ask a question? At the hospital in Texas, you had seen—had you seen the whole body, or just the back of the President's head?
Mr. HILL. I had seen the whole body, but he was still cold when I saw him.
Representative BOGGS. At the morgue in Bethesda he was not cold?
Mr. HILL. Yes, sir; the autopsy had been completed, and the Lawler Mortuary Co. was preparing the body for placement in a casket.
Representative BOGGS. At this time did you see the whole body?
Mr. HILL. Yes, sir.
Representative BOGGS. Did you see any other wound other than the head wound?
Mr. HILL. Yes, sir; I saw an opening in the back, about 6 inches below the neckline to the right-hand side of the spinal column. (2 H 143)

William Greer, the Secret Service agent who drove the limo:

Mr. SPECTER. What did you observe about the President with respect to his wounds?
Mr. GREER. His head was all shot, this whole part was all a matter of blood like he had been hit.
Mr. SPECTER. Indicating the top and right-rear side of the head?
Mr. GREER. Yes, sir; it looked like that was all blown off. (2 H 124)

Now, compare these statements with the statements made to the HSCA and the ARRB by witnesses at the autopsy, including the wound diagrams some of those witnesses drew:

http://www.jfklancer.com/backes/horne/Backes2a.html
http://www.jfklancer.com/Backes.html

[John Mytton]

There's a reason why society conducts hours long autopsy's on cleaned up bodies instead of relying on a casual glance in Emergency of a blood spattered head, with blood matted hair and non secured skull flap all the while in hectic challenging circumstances. And don't forget that the Parkland surgeons in Emergency never even handled Kennedy's head wound.

Thanks to 21st Century Computer Power the impossible to fake stereoscopic back of head autopsy photos only show a bullet entrance and no large exit hole but what we do see is a complete corroboration of the skull flap which is seen in the equally impossible to fake Zapruder film.





JohnM

[Michael T. Griffith]

There's a reason why society conducts hours long autopsy's on cleaned up bodies instead of relying on a casual glance in Emergency of a blood spattered head, with blood matted hair and non secured skull flap all the while in hectic challenging circumstances. And don't forget that the Parkland surgeons in Emergency never even handled Kennedy's head wound.

This spurious argument was debunked decades ago. Let us start by quoting from Dr. McClelland's WC testimony:

Mr. SPECTER. Before proceeding to describe what you did in connection with the tracheostomy, will you more fully describe your observation with respect to the head wound?
Dr. McCLELLAND. As I took the position at the head of the table that I have already described, to help out with the tracheotomy, I was in such a position that I could very closely examine the head wound, and I noted that the right posterior portion of the skull had been extremely blasted. It had been shattered, apparently, by the force of the shot so that the parietal bone was protruded up through the scalp and seemed to be fractured almost along its right posterior half, as well as some of the occipital bone being fractured in its lateral half, and this sprung open the bones that I mentioned in such a way that you could actually look down into the skull cavity itself and see that probably a third or so, at least, of the brain tissue, posterior cerebral tissue and some of the cerebellar tissue had been blasted out. (2 H 33)

Furthermore, the Parkland doctors and nurses had plenty of time to view the wounds in a non-emergency environment between the time they declared JFK dead and the time his body left the hospital--his body did not leave the hospital until over an hour after he was declared dead. The body had to be cleaned; the head wound had to be packed; the head had to be wrapped; and the body had to be wrapped. So the doctors and nurses had plenty of time to view the wounds before the body was placed in the casket.

Clint Hill saw the body at the Bethesda morgue, and he was called there for the express purpose of recording JFK's wounds, and he saw the same right-rear head wound that he saw up-close for 4 minutes in the limo hours earlier, the same back-of-the-head wound that Jackie was holding down in the limo on the way to the hospital. Diana Bowron packed the large head wound with gauze squares, so she both handled and closely examined the wound, and she said it was in the back of the head. And on and on we could go. Plus, a neurosurgeon is not going to be mistaken about cerebellar brain tissue, which looks very different than any other brain tissue.

And I notice you said nothing about the fact that the Bethesda witnesses likewise saw the large wound in the back of the head. Tom Robinson, the mortician, had to handle it as he reassembled the skull. Dr. Ebersole, the radiologist, handled the head as he positioned it to take the skull x-rays--he said the large wound was in the right-rear part of the head.

You're just gonna have to do a lot better than "they were all mistaken." That argument is pitiful and silly when you look at the eyewitness evidence.

Thanks to 21st Century Computer Power the impossible to fake stereoscopic back of head autopsy photos
 only show a bullet entrance and no large exit hole

Hogwash. Dr. Mantik studied F3 (the back-of-the-head photo) with a stereo viewer at the National Archives and found that it does *not* show stereoscopic consistency, which means it has been faked. F3 is also the photo that Dr. Finck disputed when the HSCA showed it to him. F3 is also the photo that Dr. Ebersole told the HSCA did not show the large head wound that he remembered. F3 is also the photo that Nurse Bowron said was bogus.

And how do you square F3 with F8 and with the autopsy report? The autopsy report says the large head wound extended into the occiput? In F3 and F5, the large wound is above and forward of the right ear and is nowhere the occiput. F8 shows a sizable amount of occipital bone missing.

And how in the world do you square your alleged rear head entry wound in F3 with the skull x-rays? There is no wound there in the x-rays, as the three ARRB radiologic experts confirmed, and as we now know some of the HSCA's expert consultants told the HSCA. And what about the EOP-to-right-eye fragment trail that the autopsy doctors swore up and down they saw on the lateral skull x-rays? Where is it? Why is it nowhere to be seen on the extant x-rays? Did they somehow "mistake" the top-of-head fragment trail for a trail that was 4 inches lower and that had no relation to the EOP?! You guys need to start dealing with these issues if you want to remain relevant. Ignoring them won't make them go away.

but what we do see is a complete corroboration of the skull flap which is seen in the equally impossible to fake Zapruder film. JohnM

Once again you are years behind the information curve. It was entirely possible in 1963 to alter the Zapruder film, and we now know that the Z film was diverted to a CIA-contracted lab in New York and then flown back to the CIA's NPIC photo lab in DC. I take it you have not heard of former CIA photo analyst Don Brugioni? He revealed a few years ago that there were two different versions of the Zapruder film at NPIC and that he prepared his briefing boards based on the first version, whereas the second team based their boards on the second version, the version that came back from the CIA-contracted photo lab in New York. Have you heard about any of this?

And have you read any of the scientific studies on evidence of alteration in the Zapruder film, studies done by physicists and film experts? Have you read any of this material?

Here are some links to get you started on your long-overdue research:

https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/altered-history-exposing-deceit-and-deception-in-the-jfk-assassination-medical-evidence-part-4-video/
A presentation by Doug Horne, the former chief analyst of military records for the ARRB.

https://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/tag/hawkeye-works/
An article by scientist Richard Charnin on evidence of alteration in the Zapruder film.

https://miketgriffith.com/files/zfilmaltered.pdf
My own humble effort on evidence of alteration in the Zapruder film.

[John Tonkovich]

Wow. Two of the blind men discussing the elephant.
For Mr Griffith:  " fragment wound".
From where did this fragment originate? From the front? Side?

I won't bother with the other guy; he still thinks it's perfectly normal that Connally's suit was laundered.
Hint: think blood and brain splatter.
Also. See Zapruder frame 275. For a man who has been allegedly hit by a magic bullet entering his right side just below the shoulder, had several ribs shattered, and had a major chest exit wound, he sure looks pretty spry and flexible, as he turns a full 90 degrees to his right, looking directly at the president..." who I could not see".  Sure, if you are a Zapruder alterationist,, I guess.  : )

[Michael T. Griffith]

Let us now compare the Parkland descriptions of the large head wound with the Bethesda descriptions of the wound.

But, first, let’s be honest: Nobody really believes that dozens of medical personnel and numerous federal agents and others, in three different locations, were “mistaken” when they reported that JFK’s large head wound was in the right-rear part of the head. Nobody really believes this, especially now that we have scientific evidence that a white patch was placed on the right-rear part of the skull on the lateral skull x-rays, and now that we know that autopsy photo F8 shows bone missing from the occiput.

We know that the Parkland doctors knew the large head wound was on the back of the head because one of the first things they had to do was locate large wounds that were bleeding and then stop the bleeding. They quickly noted the large wound in the right occipital-parietal area and ordered Nurse Hutton to put a pressure dressing on the wound to stop it from bleeding, but the wound was so massive that she could not stop the bleeding:

“Mr. Kennedy was bleeding profusely from a wound in the back of his head. . . . A doctor asked me to place a pressure dressing on the head wound. This was no use, however, because of the massive opening on the back of the head.” (21 H 216)

About 30 minutes later, Nurse Bowron packed that same large head wound with gauze squares to prepare the body for placement in the casket, and she said the wound was in “the back of his head” (6 H 136).

This was the same part of the head that Jackie told the WC she was trying to hold together on the way to Parkland: "the back" of his head.

Tom Robinson, the mortician who reassembled JFK’s skull

Hours later, at Bethesda Naval Hospital, after the autopsy, the mortician, Tom Robinson, had to fill this same back-of-the-head wound to prepare the body for burial. He told the HSCA that he used “heavy-duty rubber . . . to fill this area . . . in the back of the head” (HSCA interview transcript, 1/12/1977, p. 3). He told the ARRB the same thing (ARRB interview transcript, 6/18/1996, pp. 3-4). He told the ARRB that there was “a large open head wound in the back of the President's head centrally located right between the ears, where the bone was gone as well as some scalp” (ARRB interview transcript, 6/18/1996, p. 3). Mind you: this is the guy who not only watched the autopsy but who reassembled the skull after the autopsy.

Here is the wound diagram that Robinson drew for the ARRB:



John VonHoesen, who assisted Robinson with preparing the body for burial

John VonHoesen assisted Tom Robinson. Both he and Robinson worked for Gawler’s Funeral Home and helped prepare JFK’s body for burial. VonHoesen said the large head wound “was roughly the size of a small orange (estimated by gesturing with his hands) in the centerline of the back of the head,” and he specified that this hole was still visible after the head had been reconstructed (ARRB interview transcript, 9/25/1996, p. 2).

VonHoesen added that “the damaged area in the back of the President's head was not visible as the President lay supine in the casket and that it was covered by the pillow which the President's head was resting on” (ARRB interview transcript, 9/25/1996, p. 2).

Joe Hagan, who also assisted Robinson

Joe Hagan was another Gawler’s Funeral Home technician who helped Tom Robinson prepare JFK’s body for burial. He did not want to talk to the ARRB and had to be subpoenaed. At first he refused to describe the large head wound that he saw during and after the autopsy. After being repeatedly pressed to report what he saw, he said that "all of this was open in the back” while holding his two hands about 6 inches away from his upper posterior skull gesturing to the area between both of his own ears on the back of his head (ARRB interview transcript, 4/16/1996, p. 3) When describing how the large head wound looked while the head was being reconstructed, he said it was in the “posterior skull” (ARRB interview transcript, 4/16/1996, p. 3).

James Sibert, FBI agent who attended the autopsy

James Sibert was an FBI agent who attended the autopsy and who remained at Bethesda for a while after the autopsy. He saw Robinson and other Gawler’s technicians getting ready to prepare JFK’s body for burial. Sibert told the ARRB there was “a large cavity” at the “back part of the head” and, while motioning, he said, "It’s in the back part of the head here” (ARRB interview transcript, 9/11/1997, pp. 66-71). Sibert agreed to draw a diagram of the head wound. Here is the diagram he drew:



Sibert might have based this on how JFK's skull looked after it had been reconstructed. Both Robinson and VonHoesen said there was still a hole in the occiput after skull reconstruction had been completed.

Francis O’Neill, FBI agent who attended the autopsy

Francis O’Neill was the other FBI agent who attended the autopsy. He and Sibert wrote a report on the autopsy. O’Neill repeatedly told the ARRB that there was brain and bone missing “from the back of the head, behind the ear” (ARRB interview transcript, 9/12/1997, p. 117) Years earlier, O’Neill told the HSCA the same thing. Here is the diagram that O’Neill drew of the large head wound for the HSCA:



When the ARRB interviewer showed O’Neill autopsy photo F3 (the back-of-the-head photo), he said, “This looks like it’s been doctored in some way,” and he recalled there was “a larger [sic] opening in the back of the head” (ARRB interview transcript, 9/12/1997, p. 158).

At a symposium at the Franklin Pierce Law Center, 4/2/1992, O’Neill said that the head-shot bullet “really did knock off the back of the brain, backside of the president’s head” (http://www.manuscriptservice.com/FXO/transcript.pdf). It should be noted that O’Neill made this comment while defending the lone-gunman theory and while arguing for Oswald’s guilt!

By the way, O’Neill insisted to the ARRB that the back wound was much lower than where Boswell later placed it in a magazine article (Boswell put it where the autopsy report claimed it was):

“I had heard--I had seen--supposedly drawings from some publication where Boswell made drawings or alluded to the bullet wound in the back being not actually in the back but in the back of the neck. And I disagreed thoroughly with that.” (ARRB interview transcript, 9/12/1997, p. 111)

Saundra Spencer, Navy photographic technician, head of the White House photo lab

Saundra Spencer developed photos of JFK’s body. At the time, Spencer was a senior non-commissioned officer in the Navy and worked at the Naval Photographic Center in DC. She was in charge of the White House photo lab. In the photos that she developed, she saw “a wound in the back of the President's head” that was “about 2 to 2.5 inches wide located in about the center of the back of the President's head about 3 or 4 inches above the hairline at the back of his head” (ARRB interview transcript, 12/13/1996, p. 3).

She added that she remembered “no damage to the right side of the President's head” (ARRB interview transcript, 12/13/1996, p. 3).

Joe O’Donnell, USIA photographer

Joe O’Donnell was a federal photographer who worked for the USIA in 1963. About a week after the assassination, White House photographer Robert Knudsen, who developed some of the autopsy photos, showed him some of the autopsy pictures. O’Donnell told the ARRB that the photos he saw “included the President lying on his back, on his stomach, and closeups of the back of the head.” He said that the back-of-the-head photograph “showed a hole in the back of the head about 2 inches above the hairline about the size of a grapefruit” (ARRB interview transcript, 1/29/1997, p. 2).

Robert Knudsen, White House photographer

White House photographer Robert Knudsen, who, as mentioned, showed some autopsy photos to Joe O’Donnell, told the HSCA that the back-of-the-head photo that he saw showed “the wound in the right rear of the head, a little right of center” (HSCA interview transcript, 8/11/1978, p. 36).

[Louis Earl]

But ... Oswald did it and in order for him to have done it he had to have shot from behind so all evidence inconsitent with a shot from behind is inaccurate.

[John Tonkovich]

Mytton: Zapruder frame 275 is quite telling.
The medical evidence is also important.
Connally's career was on the line.
A big strong Texas hero sees Kennedy has been hit.
He immediately looks to help the President.
Nope. Just tries to save his own skin.

[John Tonkovich]

How do you know Connally was cognizant at that moment?

He remembers seeing and hearing things near the time when he fell backwards towards Nellie, which occurs later than Z275. He told the HSCA:

    "The force of the bullet drove my body over almost double and when I looked,
     immediately I could see I was just drenched with blood. So, I knew I had been
     badly hit and I more or less straightened up. At about this time, Nelly reached
     over and pulled me down into her lap."

    "when the third shot was fired I was in a reclining position, and heard it, saw it
     and the effects of it, rather ..."

So, when was Connally hit in the back? Which Z frame?