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Warren Commission Hearings: Vol. IV - Page 118« Previous | Next »

(Testimony of Dr. Charles Francis Gregory)

Mr. Specter.
What were your duties in a general way back on November 22, 1963, with Parkland Hospital?
Dr. GREGORY. On that date, November 22, 1963, I was seeing patients in the health service of the adjacent medical school building when about noon I was advised that the President of the United States had been admitted to Parkland Hospital due to gunshot injuries.
I went immediately to the emergency room area of the Parkland Hospital, and upon gaining admission to the emergency room, I encountered the hospital superintendent.
I inquired of him then as to whether or not the President had injuries which might require my attention and he indicated that they were not of that nature.
I, therefore, took a number of unnecessary onlookers like myself from the emergency area in order to reduce the confusion, and I went to the fifth floor of the hospital, which is the orthopedic ward.
And after attending a number of patients there, I prepared to leave. the hospital, but stopped by the surgical suite on my way out, to check and see if any need for my services might have come up, and encountered there Dr. Shaw who indicated to me that Governor Connally had also been injured, and that these included injuries to his extremities for which I would be retained.
Mr. Specter.
Did Dr. Shaw then call upon you to perform operative aid for Governor Connally?
Dr. GREGORY. He did.
Mr. Specter.
And when did you first see Governor Connally then?
Dr. GREGORY. I first saw Governor Connally after Dr. Shaw had prepared him and draped him for the surgical procedures which he carried out on the Governor's chest.
Mr. Specter.
Now, did you have any opportunity to observe the wound on the Governor's chest?
Dr. GREGORY. I could see the wounds on the Governor's chest, but I could see them only through the apertures available in the surgical drapes, and therefore I had difficulty orienting the exact positions of the wounds, except for the wound identified as the wound of exit which could be related to the nipple in the right chest which was exposed.
Mr. Specter.
Now what did you observe with respect to the wound on the Governor's wrist?
Dr. GREGORY. I did not have an opportunity to examine the wound on the Governor's wrist until Dr. Shaw had completed his surgical treatment of the Governor's chest wound.
At that time he was turned to his back and it was possible to examine both the right upper extremity and the left lower extremity for wounds of the wrist and left thigh respectively.
The right wrist was the site of a perforating wound, which by assumption began on a dorsal lateral surface. In lay terms this is the back of the hand on the thumb side at a point approximately 5 centimeters above the wrist joint.
There is a second wound presumed to be the wound of exit which lay in the midline of the wrist on its palmar surface about 2 centimeters, something less than 1 inch above the wrist crease, the most distal wrist crease.
Mr. Specter.
You say that the, wound on the dorsal or back side of the wrist you assume to be the wound of entrance. What factors, if any, led you to that assumption?
Dr. GREGORY. I assumed it to be a wound of entrance because of the general ragged appearance of the wound, but for other reasons which I can delineate in a lighter description which came to light during the operative procedure and which are also hallmarked to a certain extent by the X-rays.
Mr. Specter.
Would you proceed to tell us, even though it is out of sequence, what those factors, later. determined to be, were which led you to assume that it was the wound of entrance?
Dr. GREGORY. Yes. Assuming that the wrist wound, which included a shattering fracture of the wrist bone, of the radial bone just above the wrist, was produced by a missile there were found in the vicinity of the wound two things
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