Help Needed

[Bob Prudhomme]

Also there's this, which doesn't seem to match up with everything else:

"Both the visceral and parietal pleura are intact overlying these areas of trauma."

Don't see how that is possible if there's air leaking out.

Well, they also stated there was an entrance wound in JFK's back at the level of the juncture of the C7/T1 vertebrae, not lower down at the level of the T3 vertebra, as many witnesses reported.

Humes was attempting to establish as fact the complete fantasy that a bullet, passing through nothing but flesh at the level of C7/T1, would create a large enough shock wave to inflict a fist sized hematoma in the apex of JFK's right lung.

If the entrance wound was at T3, there had to be at least one hole in the pleural membranes. While this would have likely meant JFK had an "open" pneumothorax on the way to Parkland (unless the wound tended to self-seal, as some very clean bullet wounds have been known to do), laying JFK on his back on the cart in Trauma Room One likely guaranteed this wound sealed itself off, and a tension pneumothorax began.

While it is not known how long assisted ventilation with positive pressure oxygen was carried on, we do know that, despite the wound in the trachea, enough air made it past the trachea wound for breath sounds to be heard in the lungs through auscultation by stethoscope. If we can assume that positive pressure ventilation was begun as soon as JFK was on the ER cart, and carried on until intubation was begun and right up until the tracheotomy was performed, a sizeable amount of oxygen would have been introduced into JFK's right pleural cavity; more than enough volume to fill that cavity and induce a tension pneumothorax.