Dr.
AKIN Volume VI
TESTIMONY
OF DR. GENE COLEMAN AKIN
The testimony of Dr. Gene Coleman Akin was taken at 11:30 a.m., on March
25, 1964, at
Mr. SPECTER. May the record show that Dr. Gene Akin is present in
response to a letter request that he appear to have his deposition taken in
connection with an inquiry being conducted by the President's Commission on the
Assassination of President Kennedy. Dr.
Akin is being asked to appear here today to testify concerning his knowledge, if
any, about the condition of President Kennedy on arrival in
With that preliminary statement of purpose, Dr. Akin, will you rise and
raise your right hand, please?
Do you solemnly swear the testimony you shall give before the President's
Commission in this deposition proceeding will be the truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Dr. AKIN. I do.
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Mr. SPECTER. Will you state your full name, please?
Dr. AKIN. Gene Coleman Akin.
Mr. SPECTER. What is your profession ?
Dr. AKIN. Medicine.
Mr. SPECTER. Are you duly licensed to practice in
Dr. AKIN. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. Do you have any specialty?
Dr. AKIN. Anesthesiology.
Mr. SPECTER. And are you board-certified?
Dr. AKIN. No.
Mr. SPECTER. Are you working toward board-certification ?
Dr. AKIN. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. Would you outline briefly your educational background?
Dr. AKIN. Premedical school at University of Texas in Austin, medical
school, Southwestern Medical School Branch of the University of Texas,
internship, Dallas Methodist Hospital, and anesthesiology residence at Parkland
Memorial Hospital, starting in July 1962.
Mr. SPECTER. And, in what year did you graduate from medical school?
Dr. AKIN. 1961.
Mr. SPECTER. And how old are you at the present time, Doctor?
Dr. AKIN. Thirty-four.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you have occasion to render assistance to President John
F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963?
Dr. AKIN. Briefly.
Mr. SPECTER. Would you state how you came to be called into the case?
Dr. AKIN. I was notified while I was on duty in the operating suite of
the hospital that anesthesia assistance was needed in the emergency room.
President Kennedy supposedly had been shot and had been brought to the
emergency room, and I immediately went down the back elevator to the emergency
room to see if I could be of assistance, and when I walked in, a tracheotomy was
being performed. President Kennedy
still had an endotracheal tube, an oro-tracheal tube in place, and the connector
from this to the Bird respirator was removed.
The anesthesia machine had been simultaneously rolled into the room and
Dr. Jenkins connected the anesthesia machine to the oro-tracheal tube and it
stayed there for a brief period, until the tracheotomy tube was placed in the
tracheotomy, at which time I connected the breathing tubes from the anesthesia
machine to the tracheotomy and held this in place while Dr. Jenkins controlled
the ventilation with 100-percent oxygen from the anesthesia machine.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you assist Dr. Jenkins then in his work ?
Dr. AKIN. Only insofar as I held the endotracheal connector in place into
the tracheotomy tube.
Mr. SPECTER. What doctors in addition to Dr. Jenkins then were present,
if any, at the time of your arrival ?
Dr. AKIN. You mean everybody in the room? I don't know that I can name
all of them.
Mr. SPECTER. Name as many as you can, if you will, please?
Dr. AKIN. There was Dr. Jenkins, there was myself for a brief period,
there was Dr. Giesecke, Dr. Jackie Hunt--they left shortly after arriving.
I heard later that they had gone across the hall to Governor Connally's
room to assist him; Dr. Malcolm Perry, Dr. Charles Baxter, Dr. Kemp Clark, Dr.
Bob McClelland, Dr. James Carrico, Dr. Ron Jones, was there, I think, shortly
after I arrived, and Dr. Fouad Bashour came in from cardiology; Dr. Don Seldin
walked in briefly, I can't remember the team that worked on the cutdowns on the
legs---I can't remember that. This
is sort of hazy, because it was a couple of days later we went through the same
business over again and I am liable to say that there was somebody there that
worked on Kennedy that actually had worked on Oswald, because I was on the
Oswald mess too. This is all that I
remember were positively there. I remember their being there, but there were
others that I am not sure of.
Mr SPECTER. What did you observe as to the President's condition?
Dr. AKIN. He looked moribund
in my medical judgment.
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Mr. SPECTER. Did you observe any wounds on him at the time you first saw
him?
Dr. AKIN. There was a midline neck wound below the level of the cricoid
cartilage, about 1 to 1.5 cm. in diameter, the lower part of this had been cut
across when I saw the wound, it had been cut across with a knife in the
performance of the tracheotomy. The
back of the right occipitalparietal portion of his head was shattered, with
brain substance extruding.
Mr. SPECTER. Returning to the wound which you first described, can you
state in any more detail the appearance of it at the time you first saw it?
Dr. AKIN. I don't think I could--this is about all I noticed.
I noticed this wound very briefly and it was a matter of academics as to
how he sustained the wound. My
attention, because of my standing on the right side of the patient who was lying
supine, my attention was very soon directed to the head wound, and this was my
major concern.
Mr. SPECTER. And as to the neck wound, did you have occasion to observe
whether there was a smooth, jagged, or what was the nature of the portion of the
neck wound which had not been cut by the tracheotomy?
Dr. AKIN. It was slightly ragged around the edges.
Mr. SPECTER. And when you said that--
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 puncture 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 thatmade 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
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.
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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
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 ram. 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
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
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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 as 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?
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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.
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