31-01-2013, 07:44 PM
LR Trotter Wrote:Peter Lemkin Wrote:[ATTACH=CONFIG]4211[/ATTACH]
Mr Altgens statement as printed reads, "blood covered the whole left side of his head". I have to wonder, as I wander, if the reference is Mr Altgens' left side of JFK's head, rather than JFK's left. Considering that Mr Altgens' photo was from JFK's front, I am just curious as to which side he is actually referring to, as I don't recall any other indication of the left side being that way.
mallprint:
Mr. ALTGENS - Yes. What made me almost certain that the shot came from behind
was because at the time I was looking at the President, just as he was struck,
it caused him to move a bit forward. He seemed as if at the time----well, he was
in a position-- sort of immobile. He wasn't upright. He was at an angle but when
it hit him, it seemed to have just lodged--it seemed as if he were hung up on a
seat button or something like that. It knocked him just enough forward that he
came right on down. There was flesh particles that flew out of the side of his
head in my direction from where I was standing, so much so that it indicated to
me that the shot came out of the left side of his head. Also, the fact that his
head was covered with blood, the hairline included, on the left side all the way
down, with no blood on his forehead or face--- suggested to me, too, that the
shot came from the opposite side, meaning in the direction of this Depository
Building, but at no time did I know for certain where the shot came from.
Mr. LIEBELER - Now, the thing that is troubling me, though, Mr. Altgens, is that you say the car was 30 feet away at the time you took Commission Exhibit No. 203 and that is the time at which the first shot was fired?
Mr. ALTGENS - Yes, sir.
Mr. LIEBELER - And that it was 15 feet away at the time the third shot was fired.
Mr. ALTGENS - Yes, sir.
Mr. LIEBELER - But during that period of time the car moved much more than 15 feet down Elm Street going down toward the triple underpass?
Mr. ALTGENS - Yes, sir.
Mr. LIEBELER - I don't know how many feet it moved, but it moved quite a ways from the time the first shot was fired until the time the third shot was fired. I'm having trouble on this Exhibit No. 203 understanding how you could have been within 30 feet of the President's car when you took Commission Exhibit No. 203 and within 15 feet of the car when he was hit with the last shot in the head without having moved yourself. Now, you have previously indicated that you were right beside the President's car when he was hit in the head.
Mr. ALTGENS - Well, I was about 15 feet from it.
See attached for location of Altgens at 313 and 341 (when he really is 15 feet from JFK)
Furthermore, the WCR tells us that 313 occurs 5 feet short of Station 5-00, which is 4+95. The legend of the shots tell us it occurred at 4+65, 30 feet further UP Elm.
Well... McClellend concluded via Jenkins that there was an entry wound near the left temple and Father Huber described a "horrible wound" over the left eye near the temple....
Wound in Left Temple http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/issues_and_..._text.html
Dr. Robert N. McClelland of Parkland, in his
medical report, stated that "the cause of death…" was from "…a gunshot wound of
the left temple." Dr. Marion T. Jenkins testified that he saw blood in the
hairline of the left temple. The priest who administered the last rites to the
President, Oscar L. Huber, also saw the wound over the left eye.
Regarding the news conference at Parkland on the afternoon of November 22, the
Associated Press reported, "Dr. Perry said the entrance woundwhich is the
medical descriptionthe entrance wound was in the front of the head." The Secret
Service was supposed to furnish the Warren Commission with media recordings of
the press conference, but apparently it never did. Furthermore, according to the
National Archives, "No tape recordings or transcripts of the interviews with
doctors at Parkland Memorial Hospital, Dallas, Texas, have been found in the
Commission's records."
The Bethesda autopsy report mentions no wound in
the front of the head at all, let alone a wound of the left templeeven though a
chart of the President's skull sketched by autopsy physician J. Thornton Boswell
(Figure 4) may indicate not only its presence, but also the fact that it was
enlarged to three centimeters (about an inch).
http://spot.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.bac...lland.html
In spite of the fact that the record indicates the tracheostomy had been
completed prior to his arrival at the head of the gurney, Dr. Jenkins claimed
otherwise. "Everyone claims to be there first, but the only doctor there when I
arrived was Carrico, and Drs. Baxter and Perry arrived shortly after me," he
told Gerald Posner (Posner 288). "When Bob McClelland came into the room, he
asked me, `Where are his wounds?' And at that time, I was operating a breathing
bag with my right hand, and was trying to take the President's temporal pulse,
and I had my finger on his left temple. Bob thought I pointed to the left temple
as the wound" (Posner 313). Consequently, Dr. McClelland's report reflects a
"...a gunshot wound of the left temple" (CE 392:17WCH 12), a mistake which would
follow him for years. Dr. McClelland, however, explains the mistake in quite
different terms: "I wrote that down (in my report) because Jenkins has said
that there was (a wound there in the left temple), and I knew that he knew that
there was a bullet hole there, and that fit with that larger (posterior)
wound" (emphasis added) (McClelland 09-10-92).
Dr. Jenkins' attempt to locate a temporal pulse was not the only occasion on
which he asserted his belief that there was a left temporal wound, as his Warren
Commission testimony proves:
Jenkins: "I don't know if this is right or not, but I thought
there was a wound on the left temporal area, right in the hairline and right
above the zygomatic process" (emphasis added).
Specter: "The autopsy report
discloses no such development, Dr. Jenkins."
Jenkins: "Well, I was feeling
for--I was palpating here for a pulse to see whether the closed chest cardiac
massage was effective or not and this probably was some blood that had come from
the other point and so I thought there was a wound there also" (6WCH
48).
Later during his questioning, Dr. Jenkins returned to the issue of a wound in there was a wound on the left temporal area, right in the hairline and right
above the zygomatic process" (emphasis added).
Specter: "The autopsy report
discloses no such development, Dr. Jenkins."
Jenkins: "Well, I was feeling
for--I was palpating here for a pulse to see whether the closed chest cardiac
massage was effective or not and this probably was some blood that had come from
the other point and so I thought there was a wound there also" (6WCH
48).
the left temple:
Jenkins: "I asked you a little bit ago if there was a wound in the
left temporal area, right above the zygomatic bone in the hairline, because
there was blood there and I thought there might have been a wound there
(indicating)."
Specter: "Indicating the left temporal area?"
Jenkins:
"Yes; the left temporal, which could have been a point of entrance and exit here
(indicating) (sic-presumably pointing to where he had identified the wound in
prior testimony--the right rear of the skull near the cerebellum), but you have
answered that for me (that 'the autopsy report discloses no such development')"
(6WCH 51).
