Warren Commission (06 of 26): Hearings Vol. VI (of 15)United States. Warren Commission
History
Warren Commission (06 of 26): Hearings Vol. VI (of 15)
United States. Warren Commission
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 -- Assassination; Oswald, Lee Harvey
Dr. JENKINS. Well, I was aware of what he was in an agonal state. This
is not a too unfamiliar state that we see in the Service, as much
trauma as we see, that is, he had the agonal respiratory gasp made
up of jerking movements of the mylohyoid group of muscles. These are
referred to sometimes as chin jerk, tracheal tug or agonal muscles
of respiration. He had this characteristic of respiration. His eyes
were opened and somewhat exophthalmic and color was greatly suffused,
cyanotic--a purplish cyanosis.
Still, we have patients in the state, as far as cyanosis and agonal
type respiration, who are resuscitatable. Of course, you don't stop at
this time and think, "Well, this is a hopeless circumstance,"--because
one in this state can often be resusciated--this represents the
activities prior to one's demise sometimes, and if it can be stopped,
such as the patient is oxygenated again and circulation reinstituted,
he can be saved.
Dr. Carrico had just introduced an endotracheal tube, I'm very proud
of him for this because it's not as easy as it sounds. At times and
under the circumstances--it was harder--he had just completed a 3-month
rotation on the anesthesiology service, and I thought this represented
good background training for a smart individual, and he told me he had
a cuff on the endotracheal tube and he introduced it below the wound.
The reason I said this, of course, this is a reflex--there is a tube,
the endotracheal tube, if it is pushed down a little too far it can go
into the right main stem of the bronchus impairing respiration from
both lungs, or both chests.
There was in the room an intermittent positive pressure breathing
apparatus, which can be used to respire for a patient. As I connected
this up, however, Dr. Carrico and I connected it up to give oxygen
by artificial respiration, Dr. Giesecke and Dr. Hunt arrived on the
scene with the anesthesia machine and I connected it up instead with
something I am more familiar with--not for anesthesia, I must insist on
that--it was for the oxygenation, the ability to control ventilation
with 100 percent oxygen.
As I came in there, other people came in also. This is my recollection.
Now, by this time I was in familiar surroundings, despite the anguish
of the circumstance.
Despite the unusual circumstance, in terms of the distinguished
personage who was the patient, I think the people who had gathered
or who had congregated were so accustomed to doing resuscitative
procedures of this nature that they knew where to fit into the
resuscitation team without having a preconceived or predirected plan,
because, as obviously--some people were doing things not necessarily in
their specialty, but there was the opening and there was the necessity
for this being done.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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