Mr. SPECTER. And what, in your opinion, was the cause of death? Dr. JENKINS. Cerebral injury--brain injury. Mr. SPECTER. Was President Kennedy ever turned over during the course of this treatment at Parkland? Dr. JENKINS. No. Mr. SPECTER. Why was he not turned over, Dr. Jenkins? Dr. JENKINS. Oh, I think this was beyond our prerogative completely. I think as we pronounced the President dead, those in attendance who were there just sort of melted away, well, I guess "melted" is the wrong word, but we felt like we were intruders and left. I'm sure that this was considerably beyond our prerogative, and the facts were we knew he had a fatal wound, and I think my own personal feeling was that this was--would have been meddlesome on anybody's part after death to have done any further search. Mr. SPECTER. Was any examination of his back made before death, to your knowledge? Dr. JENKINS. No, no; I'm sure there wasn't. Mr. SPECTER. Did he remain on the stretcher cart at all times while he was being cared for? Dr. JENKINS. Yes, sir. Can I say something that isn't in the report here, or not? Mr. SPECTER. Yes; let's go off the record a minute. (Discussion off the record between Counsel Specter and the witness, Dr. Jenkins.) Mr. SPECTER. May the record show that we are back on the record and Dr. Jenkins has made an interesting observation about the time of the declaration of death, and I will ask you, Dr. Jenkins, for you to repeat for the record what you have just said off the record. Dr. JENKINS. As the resuscitative maneuvers were begun, such as "chest cardiac massage," there was with each compression of the sternum, a gush of blood from the skull wound, which indicated there was massive vascular damage in the skull and the brain, as well as brain tissue damage, and we recognized by this time that the patient was beyond the point of resuscitation, that he was in fact dead, and this was substantiated by getting a silent electrical pattern on the electrocardiogram, the cardioscope that was connected up. However, for a period of minutes, but I can't now define exactly, since I didn't put this in a report, after we knew he was dead, we continued attempted resuscitative maneuvers. When we saw the two priests who arrived in the corridor outside the emergency room where this was taking place, I went to the door and asked one of those--after turning over my ventilation, my respiration job to another one of my department--and asked him what is the proper time to declare one dead. That is, I am not a Catholic and I was not sure of the time for the last rites. As I remember now, he said, "The time that the soul leaves the body--is not at exactly the time that medical testimony might say that death was declared." There would be a period of time and so if we wished to declare him dead at that time they would still have the final rites. Mr. SPECTER. Did they then have the final rites after the time he was declared dead medically?