Help Needed

[Bob Prudhomme]

An overwhelming number of the ER staff at Parkland reported that not only were bi-lateral chest tubes inserted into both of JFK's pleural cavities, they were also connected to sealed water drainage, as was the standard practice for continued relief of tension pneumothoraces. As I stated in my last post, this is a fairly quick procedure and, as there were doctors working on each chest tube, it is possible they would have been finished this task before Perry had completed the tracheostomy and subsequent intubation.

It is therefore somewhat puzzling to read the autopsy report, and see Humes describe very shallow subcutaneous (barely beneath the skin) bi-lateral incisions in JFK's upper chest. In the autopsy report, he describes these as incisions to relieve subcutaneous emphysema, a non-life threatening condition never reported by a single physician at Parkland Hospital, and not apparent at all in any of the autopsy photos.

This is the only time Humes ever describes these incisions as treatment for subcutaneous emphysema. After this, he always recognizes them as the beginnings of incisions for the purpose of inserting chest tubes. However, this is almost as laughable as his "subcutaneous emphysema" story, considering that, once the subcutaneous incisions were made, they were only one or two scalpel strokes away from entering the pleural cavity and completing the procedure. If something stopped the two teams of doctors that were making the incisions at this point, doesn't it seem odd that both teams were so synchronized, they were stopped at exactly the same point in the procedure?

Humes lied.