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To: Swordmaker
An exit wound from the throat would bleed a great deal, I would think

Generally, yes, but it would depend on the trajectory, cavitation, and exit. Any arterial damage would result in a spurting spray, venous would be a more slow oozing. Somewhat rarely, a clean through and through of soft tissue leaves little outside damage and has less bleeding than expected.

In Kennedy's case, the throat wound was assessed as an entrance wound in the ER and was in perfect placement for a tracheal tube. Not surprisingly, this is a trained procedure. If there is a clear opening to the trachea, it is used for insertion rather than making a new incision.

The surgeons reported an approx. half a centimeter round hole that was only opened slightly for tube insertion (perhaps 1 to 1.5 cm).

There was some bleeding on the shirt around the hole in the shirt (in the one photograph I have seen) but given the ER description and the size of this hole, and since the bullet would have torn apart some of the cartilage u-shaped rings of the trachea, I would have surmised a possible entry wound and would have quickly palpated cervical vertebrae level of the back of the neck down to the upper thoracic vertebra level (as much as could be reached) looking for an exit wound.

Check out the photo of the back entry wound:

There is a major problem with this picture. The autopsy figures for wound placement were measured form the right mastoid process. So where is this ruler measuring from? There are no obvious or standard anatomical landmarks there. The ruler isn't in line with spine or even parallel so the spinous processes aren't being used.

Odd point for the conspiracy side - some have claimed the ruler is covering another wound that was reported by the FBI.

207 posted on 11/25/2003 7:52:52 PM PST by Ophiucus
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To: Ophiucus; Swordmaker
Generally, yes, but it would depend on the trajectory, cavitation, and exit. Any arterial damage would result in a spurting spray, venous would be a more slow oozing. Somewhat rarely, a clean through and through of soft tissue leaves little outside damage and has less bleeding than expected.

Continued heavy bleeding would also largely depend on the subject remaining alive, no? Once Kennedy got hit by that head shot (regardless of which direction one wishes to believe it came from) that was his moment of death, regardless of when they got around to "making time of death official".

215 posted on 11/25/2003 11:09:31 PM PST by Timesink (I'm not a big fan of electronic stuff, you know? Beeps ... beeps freak me out. They're bad.)
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