The Pneumothorax in JFK's Right Lung

[Bob Prudhomme]

looks like from those pictures that the real "trick" the magic bullet had to pull was missing the two arteries, as well as the back and right side of the trachea. If the bullet is far enough (to the right) as it passes the back and right side of the trachea, it should clip one or more of those arteries.

It's a tight fit, all right. Also, in order to make such a neat little round hole in JFK's throat, the bullet has to turn back onto the horizontal about the level of the exit wound.

I recall reading somewhere that the overly large tracheostomy incision on JFK's throat was not sloppiness on Malcom Perry's part but, rather, was an effort by Perry to quickly examine the trachea to see how much damage was done to it. It's a shame his findings were never recorded.

When it comes to the throat wound, I am more intetested in the ARRB deposition of Jerrol Custer, the x-ray tech who took all of the x-rays of JFK at the autopsy. He claimed that the neck x-ray he saw and remembered showed many small metallic fragments in the vicinity of cervical vertebrae C3/C4.

P.S.

Ooops! Sorry, Drew. I thought we were still talking about the bullet fragment passing through the foramen magnum. Yes, there is literally a whole forest of blood vessels in the neck that would have begun bleeding the instant JFK was shot, yet the Z film does not show a lot of bleeding from JFK. Strange wound, indeed.