Dr. AKIN. No powder burns; I didn't notice any powder burns.
Mr. SPECTER. What was the dimension of the punctate wound, without
regards to the tracheotomy which was being started?
Dr. AKIN. It looked--it was as you said, it was a punctate wound. It
was roughly circular, about, I would judge, 1.5 cm. in diameter.
Mr. SPECTER. What did you mean when you just made your reference to the
academic aspect with the wound, Dr. Akin?
Dr. AKIN. Well, naturally, the thought flashed through my mind that
this might have been an entrance wound. I immediately thought it could
also have been an exit wound, depending upon the nature of the missile
that made the wound.
Mr. SPECTER. What would be the circumstances on which it might be one
or the other?
Dr. AKIN. Well, if the President had been shot with a low velocity
missile, such as fire from a pistol, it was more likely to have been an
entrance wound, is that what you mean?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes.
Dr. AKIN. If, however, he had been shot with a high velocity military
type of rifle, for example, it could be either an entrance wound or an
exit wound.
Mr. SPECTER. Why do you say it could be either an entrance wound or an
exit wound with respect to the rifle?
Dr. AKIN. Well, because a high velocity missile coming from a military
rifle, especially if the missile were a jacketed missile, a copper- or
steel-jacketed missile, itself, the missile itself is not distorted
when it passes through soft tissue, and the wound made when the bullet
leaves the body, is a small wound, much like the wound of entrance, but
like I said, I didn't devote much time to conjecture about this.
Mr. SPECTER. How much experience have you had, if any, on gunshot
wounds, doctor?
Dr. AKIN. I can't really give you, say, how many cases a week I see of
this. Most of my experience with this is in an anesthetic situation
with patients coming into the hospital, having sustained gunshot
injuries, most of them are injured with low velocity missiles, smaller
caliber--.22 caliber to .38 caliber, and most of them are not injured
in a through and through fashion. In other words, I don't see too many
exit wounds, the bullets are slow moving, and they enter the body and
don't leave it. They usually stay in it, so consequently I could not be
considered an expert in exit wounds.
Mr. SPECTER. Is that the general line of bullet wounds which come into
Parkland Hospital, would you say?
Dr. AKIN. What I have just described, you mean?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes.
Dr. AKIN. Yes; I think so. Most of the people seem to be shot with
cheap ammunition fired out of inferior weapons.
Mr. SPECTER. Would your experience with the type of bullet wounds you
have just described be about the same as the other doctors have here at
Parkland, or would there be some difference between what you have seen
on bullet wounds and what the other doctors have seen?
Dr. AKIN. I think so, except there is one difference--I am not
ordinarily on duty in the emergency room, so I am not very often the
first doctor to see one of these people injured in this fashion. When I
see them they are people who have sustained a gunshot injury, but who
lived to make it to the operating room. We, I'm sure, have a lot of
people who are shot and who are dead on arrival at the emergency room,
and they are examined by the emergency room physicians, and I never
see them, so there would be a lot of people down there that I never
have seen. They might be injured with a hunting rifle or a good quality
ammunition, and I would not have seen them.
Mr. SPECTER. Dr. Akin, permit me, if you will, to give you a set of
facts which I will ask you to assume for the purpose of giving me an
opinion, if you are able to formulate one. Assume that the President
was struck by a 6.5 mm. missile which had a muzzle velocity of
approximately 2,000 feet per second at a time when the President was
approximately 160 to 250 feet away from the weapon. Assume further that
the bullet entered the President's body in the upper right posterior
thorax just above the upper border of the scapula at a point 14 cm.
from the tip of the right acromion process and 14 cm. below the tip of
the right mastoid process. Assume further that the missile traveled
through or in between, rather, the strap muscles without penetrating
either muscle but going in between the two in the area of his back
and traveled through the fascial channel without violating the pleura
cavity, and that the bullet struck the side of the trachea and exited
from the throat in the position of the punctate wound which you have
described you saw, would the wound you saw be consistent with a wound
of exit under the factors that I have just outlined to you?
Dr. AKIN. As far as I know, it is perfectly compatible from what you
have described, except when you say it passed through without injuring
the strap muscles, are you talking about the anterior strap muscles of
the neck or are you talking about the posterior muscles of the neck?
Mr. SPECTER. The anterior strap muscles of the neck.
Dr. AKIN. It's a matter of clarification because there are no strap
muscles posterior, by my terminology. Yes, this is perfectly consistent
with what I know about, or what I have been told by military experts,
concerning high velocity missile injuries.
Mr. SPECTER. And what is the basis of your information from the
military experts you just referred to?
Dr. AKIN. Military rifle demonstrations when I was a senior student
at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio. We took a brief two day tour
there with demonstrations of high velocity missile injury.
Mr. SPECTER. With respect to the head wound, Dr. Akin, did you observe
below the gaping wound which you have described any other bullet wound
in the back of the head?
Dr. AKIN. No; I didn't. I could not see the back of the President's
head as such, and the right posterior neck was obscured by blood and
skull fragments and I didn't make any attempt to examine the neck.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you have any opportunity to observe the President's
clothes?
Dr. AKIN. I noticed them.
Mr. SPECTER. With respect to examining the shirt, for example, to see
what light that would shed, if any, on the trajectory of the bullet?
Dr. AKIN. No; I didn't. The front of the chest was uncovered, the pants
had been loosened and lowered below the iliac crest, and the only
article of clothing I noticed in particular was his back corset.
Mr. SPECTER. What did you observe with respect to the back corset which
you just mentioned?
Dr. AKIN. It had been loosened and was just lying loose.
Mr. SPECTER. Can you describe the corset, indicating how wide it was?
Dr. AKIN. The only portion I saw was the front portion of the corset
and it was about, I'd say, 5 or 6 inches in width, and made out of
some white heavy fabric with the usual straps and buckles.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you notice any Ace bandage strapping the President's
buttocks area?
Dr. AKIN. No.
Mr. SPECTER. Was that area of his anatomy visible to you?
Dr. AKIN. Not his buttocks, he was lying supine.
Mr. SPECTER. Was President Kennedy ever turned over, to your knowledge?
Dr. AKIN. Not while I was there.
Mr. SPECTER. And how long were you there altogether, Dr. Akin?
Dr. AKIN. Oh, probably 15, maybe 20--perhaps 20 minutes.
Mr. SPECTER. Were you present when he was pronounced to be dead?
Dr. AKIN. Yes--I didn't leave until Dr. Clark and Dr. Jenkins had
mutually agreed that nothing else could be done.
Mr. SPECTER. What time was he pronounced dead?
Dr. AKIN. 1300 hours.
Mr. SPECTER. And what, in your opinion, was the cause of death?
Dr. AKIN. Massive gunshot injury to the brain--primary cause.
Mr. SPECTER. You have already described some of the treatment which was
performed on the President; could you supplement that by describing
what else was done for the President?
Dr. AKIN. Other than the placement of chest tubes, artificial
respiration, brief external cardiac massage--I don't know. Anything
else I said would be hearsay, and I understand that he did receive some
cortisone. He received so much Ringer's lactate, but this is not of my
own personal knowledge.
Mr. SPECTER. How many bullets were involved in the wounds inflicted on
the President, Dr. Akin?
Dr. AKIN. Probably two.
Mr. SPECTER. Have you ever changed any of your original opinions in
connection with your observations of the President or any opinions you
formed in connection with what you saw?
Dr. AKIN. You mean as to how he was injured?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes, as to how he was injured.
Dr. AKIN. Well, no; not really because I didn't have any opinions,
necessarily. Any speculation that I might have done about how he was
injured was just that, it was just speculation. I didn't form an
opinion until it was revealed where he was when he was injured and
where the alleged assassin was when he fired the shots, so I didn't
have any opinions. It was my immediate assumption that when I saw the
extent of the head wound, I assumed at that point that he had probably
been hit in the head with a high velocity missile because of the damage
that had been done. The same thing happened to his head and would
happen to a sealed can of sauerkraut that you hit with a high velocity
missile.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you have any opinion as to the direction that the
bullet hit his head?
Dr. AKIN. I assume that the right occipitalparietal region was the
exit, so to speak, that he had probably been hit on the other side
of the head, or at least tangentially in the back of the head, but I
didn't have any hard and fast opinions about that either.
Mr. SPECTER. Have you been interviewed by any representative of the
Federal Government prior to today?
Dr. AKIN. You mean concerning this matter?
Mr. SPECTER. Concerning this matter.
Dr. AKIN. I think I was probably interviewed by a member of the Secret
Service some weeks ago.
Mr. SPECTER. What did you say to him?
Dr. AKIN. Virtually the same thing, as I recall--I didn't make as long
a statement, he just wanted to know where I was and what I did and I
told him briefly and that seemed to satisfy him.
Mr. SPECTER. And is that the only time you have been interviewed by any
representative of the Federal Government concerning this matter prior
to today?
Dr. AKIN. Yes; as far as I can remember.
Mr. SPECTER. And before I started to take your deposition, did you and
I have a very brief discussion about the nature of the deposition and
the questions I would ask you?
Dr. AKIN. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. And did you give me about the same information, exactly
the same information you have put on the record here this morning?
Dr. AKIN. To my knowledge; yes.
Mr. SPECTER. Do you have anything to add which you think might be of
assistance to the President's Commission in their inquiry?
Dr. AKIN. No; I don't think so. I don't know exactly if there is any
disagreement or discrepancy in the testimony from the various people
who have testified, so I don't know. This is all I saw.
Mr. SPECTER. That's fine. Thank you very much, Dr. Akin.
Dr. AKIN. That's all right, thank you.