Mr. DULLES. An interesting project.
Dr. SHAW. I returned to Dallas and on September 1, 1963, started
working full time with the University of Texas Southwestern Medical
School as professor of thoracic surgery and chairman of the division of
thoracic surgery.
In this position I also am chief of thoracic surgery at Parkland
Memorial Hospital in Dallas which is the chief hospital from the
standpoint of the medical facilities of the school.
Mr. SPECTER. Are you licensed to practice medicine in the State of
Texas?
Dr. SHAW. I am.
Mr. SPECTER. Are you certified?
Dr. SHAW. By the board of thoracic surgery you mean?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes; by the board of thoracic surgery.
Dr. SHAW. Yes; as of 1948.
Mr. SPECTER. What experience, if any, have you had, Dr. Shaw, with
bullet wounds?
Dr. SHAW. I have had civilian experience, both in the work at Parkland
Hospital, where we see a great amount of trauma, and much of this
involves bullet wounds from homicidal attempts and accidents.
The chief experience I had, however, was during the Second World War
when I was serving as chief of the thoracic surgery center in Paris,
France. And during this particular experience we admitted over 900
patients with chest wounds of various sort, many of them, of course,
being shell fragments rather than bullet wounds.
Mr. SPECTER. What is your best estimate as to the total number of
bullet wounds you have had experience with?
Dr. SHAW. It would be approximately 1,000, considering the large number
of admissions we had in Paris.
Mr. SPECTER. What were your duties in a general way on November 22,
1963.
Dr. SHAW. On that particular date I had been at a conference at
Woodlawn Hospital, which is our hospital for medical chest diseases
connected with the medical school system. I had just gone to the
Children's Hospital to see a small patient that I had done a
bronchoscopy on a few days before and was returning to Parkland
Hospital, and the medical school.
Woodlawn and the Children's Hospital are approximately a mile away from
Parkland Hospital.
Mr. SPECTER. Were you called upon to render any aid to President
Kennedy on November 22?
Dr. SHAW. No.
Mr. SPECTER. Were you called upon to render medical aid to Gov. John B.
Connally on that day?
Dr. SHAW. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. Will you describe briefly the circumstances surrounding
your being called into the case.
Dr. SHAW. As I was driving toward the medical school I came to an
intersection of Harry Hines Boulevard and Industrial Boulevard.
There is also a railroad crossing at this particular point. I saw an
open limousine pass this point at high speed with a police escort.
We were held up in traffic because of this escort. Finally, when we
were allowed to proceed, I went on to the medical school expecting to
eat lunch. I had the radio on because it was the day that I knew the
President was in Dallas and would be eating lunch at the Trade Mart
which was not far away, and over the radio I heard the report that the
President had been shot at while riding in the motorcade. I went on to
the medical school and as I entered the medical school a student came
in and joined three other students, and said the President has just
been brought into the emergency room at Parkland, dead on arrival.
The students said, "You are kidding, aren't you?" and he said, "No,
I am not. I saw him, and Governor Connally has been shot through the
chest."
Hearing that I turned and walked over to the emergency room, which
is approximately 150 yards from the medical school, and entered the
emergency room.
Mr. SPECTER. At approximately what time did you arrive at the emergency
room where Governor Connally was situated?
Dr. SHAW. As near as I could tell it was about 12:45.
Mr. SPECTER. Who was with Governor Connally, if anyone, at that time,
Dr. Shaw?
Dr. SHAW. I immediately recognized two of the men who worked with me in
thoracic surgery, Dr. James Duke and Dr. James Boland, Dr. Giesecke,
who is an anesthesiologist, was also there along with a Dr. David
Mebane who is an instructor in general surgery.
Mr. SPECTER. What was Governor Connally's condition at that time, based
on your observations?
Dr. SHAW. The Governor was complaining bitterly of difficulty in
breathing, and of pain in his right chest. Prior to my arriving there,
the men had very properly placed a tight occlusive dressing over what
on later examination proved to be a large sucking wound in the front of
his right chest, and they had inserted a rubber tube between the second
and third ribs in the front of the right chest, carrying this tube to
what we call a water seal bottle.
Mr. SPECTER. What was the purpose?
Dr. SHAW. Yes; this is done to reexpand the right lung which had
collapsed due to the opening through the chest wall.
Mr. SPECTER. What wounds, if any, did you observe on the Governor at
that time?
Dr. SHAW. I observed no wounds on the Governor at this time. It wasn't
until he was taken to the operating room that I properly examined him
from the standpoint of the wound.
Mr. SPECTER. How long after your initial viewing of him was he taken to
the operating room?
Dr. SHAW. Within about 5 minutes. I stepped outside to talk to Mrs.
Connally because I had been given information by Dr. Duke that
blood had been drawn from the Governor, sent to the laboratory for
cross-matching for blood that we knew would be necessary, that the
operating room had already been alerted, and that they were ready and
they were merely awaiting my arrival.
Mr. SPECTER. How was Governor Connally transported from the emergency
room to the operating room?
Dr. SHAW. On a stretcher.
Mr. SPECTER. And was he transported up an elevator as well?
Dr. SHAW. Yes. It is two floors above the emergency rooms.
Mr. SPECTER. Will you describe what happened next in connection with
Governor Connally's----
Mr. DULLES. Could I ask a question, putting in this tube is prior to
making an incision?
Mr. SHAW. Yes; a stab wound.
Mr. DULLES. Just a stab wound?
Dr. SHAW. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. What treatment next followed for Governor Connally, Doctor?
Dr. SHAW. He was taken to the operating room and there Dr. Giesecke
started the anesthesia. This entails giving an intravenous injection of
sodium pentothal and then after the Governor was asleep a gas was used,
that will be on the anesthetic record there.
Mr. SPECTER. Do you know at approximately what time this procedure was
started?
Dr. SHAW. I will have to refresh my memory again from the record. We
had at the time I testified before, we had the----
Mr. SPECTER. Permit me to make available to you a copy of the Parkland
Memorial Hospital operative record and let me ask you, first of all,
if you can identify these two pages on an exhibit heretofore marked
as Commission Exhibit 392 as to whether or not this constitutes your
report?
Dr. SHAW. Yes; this is a transcription of my dictated report of the
operation.
Mr. SPECTER. Are the facts set forth therein true and correct?
Dr. SHAW. Yes. On this it states that the operation itself was begun at
1300 hours or 1 o'clock, 1 p.m., and that the actual surgery started at
1335 or 1:35 p.m.
The operation was concluded by me at 3--1520 which would be 3:20 p.m.
Mr. SPECTER. You have described, in a general way, the chest wound.
What other wounds, if any, was Governor Connally suffering from at the
time you saw him?
Dr. SHAW. I will describe then the wound of the wrist which was
obvious. He had a wound of the lower right forearm that I did not
accurately examine because I had already talked to Dr. Gregory while
I was scrubbing for the operation, told him that this wound would
need his attention as soon as we were able to get the chest in a
satisfactory condition. There was also, I was told, I didn't see the
wound, on the thigh, I was told that there was a small wound on the
thigh which I saw later.
Mr. SPECTER. When did you first have an opportunity then to examine
Governor Connally's wound on the posterior aspect of his chest?
Dr. SHAW. After the Governor had been anesthetized. As soon as he was
asleep so we could manipulate him--before that time it was necessary
for an endotracheal tube to be in place so his respirations could be
controlled before we felt we could roll him over and accurately examine
the wound entrance.
We knew this was the wound exit.
Mr. SPECTER. This [indicating an area below the right nipple on the
body]?
Dr. SHAW. Yes.
Mr. DULLES. How did you know it was a wound exit.
Dr. SHAW. By the fact of its size, the ragged edges of the wound. This
wound was covered by a dressing which could not be removed until the
Governor was anesthetized.
Mr. SPECTER. Indicating this wound, the wound on the Governor's chest?
Dr. SHAW. Yes; the front part.
Mr. SPECTER. Will you describe in as much detail as you can the wound
on the posterior side of the Governor's chest?
Dr. SHAW. This was a small wound approximately a centimeter and a
half in its greatest diameter. It was roughly elliptical. It was just
medial to the axillary fold or the crease of the armpit, but we could
tell that this wound, the depth of the wound, had not penetrated the
shoulder blade.
Mr. SPECTER. What were the characteristics, if any, which indicated to
you that it was a wound of entrance then?
Dr. SHAW. Its small size, and the rather clean cut edges of the wound
as compared to the usual more ragged wound of exit.
Mr. SPECTER. Now I hand you a diagram which is a body diagram on
Commission Exhibit No. 679, and ask you if, on the back portion of
the figure, that accurately depicts the point of entry into Governor
Connally's back?
Dr. SHAW. Yes. The depiction of the point of entry, I feel is quite
accurate.
Mr. SPECTER. Now, with respect to the front side of the body, is the
point of exit accurately shown on the diagram?