Dr.
JONES Volume VI
TESTIMONY
OF DR. RONALD COY JONES
The testimony of Dr. Ronald Coy Jones was taken at 10:20 a.m., on March
24, 1964, at
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Mr. SPECTER. May the record show at this point that Dr. Ronald Jones has
arrived in response to a letter of request to give his deposition for the
President's Commission on the assassination of President Kennedy.
Dr. Jones, the purpose of the President's Commission is to investigate
all the facts relating to the shooting and subsequent medical treatment of
President Kennedy and we have asked you to appear to testify concerning your
knowledge of that treatment.
With that statement of purpose, will you stand up and raise your right
hand. Do you solemnly swear the
testimony you give before the President's Commission during the course of this
deposition proceeding will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth, so help you God?
Dr. JONES. I do.
Mr. SPECTER. Would you state your full name for the record, please?
Dr. JONES. Ronald Coy Jones.
Mr. SPECTER. What is your profession, sir?
Dr. JONES. General Surgery--resident physician.
Mr. SPECTER. Are you duly licensed by the State of
Dr. JONES. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. Will you outline briefly your educational background?
Dr. JONES. I graduated--I went to undergraduate school at the
From there I went to the University of Oklahoma and took a 2-year general
practice residency, 1 year, the first year, entailing a year of internal
medicine and its subspecialties, and a second year of surgery and its
subspecialties, which was approved by the American Board of Surgeons for 1 year
of surgical training, and from 1960 until the present time I have taken an
additional 4 years of general surgery at Parkland, and have served as Chief
Resident of Surgery.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you have occasion to aid in the medical treatment of
President Kennedy on November 22, 1963 ?
Dr. JONES. Yes, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. Would you relate briefly the circumstances surrounding your
being called into the case ?
Dr. JONES. I was eating lunch with Dr. Perry and I heard the operator
page Dr. Tom Shires of the staff on two occasions, and the second time I
answered the phone and the operator told me that the President had been shot and
was being brought to the emergency room.
I turned around and immediately notified Miss Audrey Bell, who is the
operating room supervisor so that any arrangements could be made for immediate
surgery, and Dr. M. T. Jenkins, who is the Chief of the Anesthesiology
Department. From there I went across
the room and notified Dr. Perry of the shooting and we both went together to the
emergency room, and it was at that time we arrived shortly after the President
had been brought in.
Mr. SPECTER. What is your best estimate as to the time you arrived at the
emergency room ?
Dr. JONES. It was, I would say, around 23 or 25 minutes until 1.
Mr. SPECTER. And who was present, if anyone, at the time you arrived ?
Dr. JONES. Dr. James Carrico, and possibly Dr. Richard Dulany, and I'm
not sure that he was there or was there for just a few minutes after we arrived.
I do recall seeing him there as one of the first ones.
Mr. SPECTER. Was any nurse present at that time?
Dr. JONES. The head nurse in the emergency room was present and--
Mr. SPECTER. Do you know her name ?
Dr. JONES. It's left my mind right now-- I know her.
Mr. SPECTER. Could that be Miss Henchliffe?
Dr. JONES. She was there, I believe.
Mr. SPECTER. Mrs. Bowron ?
Dr. JONES. No--just the--
Mr. SPECTER. Mrs. Nelson?
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Dr. JONES. Nelson.
Mr. SPECTER. Was anyone else present then, other than those whom you have
already mentioned at the time you arrived?
Dr. JONES. There were three nurses there--Mrs. Nelson, Miss Henchliffe
and Miss Bowron.
Mr. SPECTER. And were any other doctors present when you arrived?
Dr. JONES. Dr. Carrico was the only doctor other than possibly Dr. Dulany,
and I do know Dr. Carrico was there when I arrived.
Mr. SPECTER. Was Dr. Don Curtis there when you arrived?
Dr. JONES. I didn't see him.
Mr. SPECTER. And who arrived with you, if you recall?
Dr. JONES. Dr. Perry.
Mr. SPECTER. And what did you observe the President's condition to be
upon your arrival?
Dr. JONES. He appeared to be terminal, if not already expired, and Dr.
Carrico said that he had seen some attempted respirations, agonal respirations,
and with that history, we went ahead with emergency measures to try to restore
the airway.
Mr. SPECTER. When you say "attempted agonal respiration," do
you mean an effort by the President?
Dr. JONES. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. Or, an effort by someone else to induce respiration?
Dr. JONES. No, these apparently were as Dr. Carrico saw the President was
attempting to respire on his own, however, I did not personally see this in the
brief seconds that I stood there before I went ahead and started work.
Mr. SPECTER. What is the lay definition for agonal respiration ?
Dr. JONES. These are the respirations that are somewhat of a strain, that
is, seen in a patient who is expiring--just very short, irregular type
respirations.
Mr. SPECTER. Would you continue now to describe what you observed to be
the President's condition?
Dr. JONES. We felt that he was in extreme shock, merely by the fact that
there was no motion, that he was somewhat cyanotic, his eyes were--appeared to
be fixed; there was no evidence of motion of the eyes; and we noticed that he
did not have a satisfactory airway or was not breathing on his own in a
satisfactory way to sustain life so that we felt that either an endotracheal
tube had to be instituted immediately, which was done by Dr. Carrico. We felt
that this was not adequate and since tracheotomy equipment was in the room, we
felt that he would profit more by tracheotomy and that we could be certain that
he was getting adequate oxygen.
Mr. SPECTER. What was done with respect to applying oxygen to the
President then ?
Dr. JONES. Well, a tracheotomy was done, and then an adapter was fitted
to this tube, and we had an anesthesia machine there by this time with Dr.
Jenkins available so that he could give him straight oxygen from the machine.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you observe anything else with respect to the
President's condition at that time?
Dr. JONES. You mean as far as wounds--that he had?
Mr. SPECTER. Did you observe any wounds ?
Dr. JONES. As we saw him the first time, we noticed that he had a small
wound at the midline of the neck, just above the superasternal notch, and this
was probably no greater than a quarter of an inch in greatest diameter, and that
he had a large wound in the right posterior side of the head.
Mr. SPECTER. When you say "we noticed," whom do you mean by
that?
Dr. JONES. Well, Dr. Perry and I were the two that were there at this
time observing.
Mr. SPECTER. Did Dr. Perry make any comment about the nature of the wound
at that time? Either wound?
Dr. JONES. Not that I recall.
Mr. SPECTER. Will you describe as precisely as you can the nature of the
head wound?
Dr. JONES. There was large defect in the back side of the head as the
President lay on the cart with what appeared to be some brain hanging out of
this
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wound
with multiple pieces of skull noted next with the brain and with a tremendous
amount of clot and blood.
Mr. SPECTER. Will you describe as precisely as you can the wound that you
observed in the throat?
Dr. JONES. The wound in the throat was probably no larger than a quarter
of an inch in diameter. There appeared to be no powder burn present, although
this could have been masked by the amount of blood that was on the head and
neck, although there was no obvious, amount of powder present.
There appeared to be a very minimal amount of disruption of interruption
of the surrounding skin. There appeared to be relatively smooth edges around the
wound, and if this occurred as a result of a missile, you would have probably
thought it was a missile of very low velocity and probably could have been
compatible with a bone fragment of either--probably exiting from the neck, but
it was a very small, smooth wound.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you notice any lump in the throat area?
Dr. JONES. No; I didn't.
Mr. SPECTER. Was there any blood on the throat area in the vicinity of
the wound which you have described of the throat?
Dr. JONES. Not a great deal of blood, as if in relation to the amount
that was around the head--not too much.
Mr. SPECTER. What further action was taken by the medical team in
addition to that which you have described on the tracheotomy?
Dr. JONES: Well,
as Dr. Perry started the tracheotomy, I started the cut down in the left
arm to insert a large polyethylene catheter, to give an I.V. so that we could
give I.V. solutions as well as blood, and at the same time another doctor or two
were doing some cutdowns in the lower extremities around the ankle.
We made the cutdown in the left arm in the cephalic vein very rapidly and
I.V. fluids were started immediately and as I was doing this, Dr. Perry was
performing the tracheotomy, and it was about this time that Dr. Baxter came in
and went ahead to assist Dr. Perry with the tracheotomy, and as they made a
deeper incision in the neck to isolate the trachea, they thought they saw some
gush of air and the possibility of a pneumothorax on one side or the other was
entertained, and since I was to the left of the President, I went ahead and put
in the anterior chest tube in the second intercostal space.
Mr. SPECTER. Was that tube fully inserted, Doctor?
Dr. JONES. I felt that the tube was fully inserted, and this was
immediately connected to underwater drainage.
Mr. SPECTER. What do you mean by "connected to underwater
drainage", Dr. Jones?
Dr. JONES. The tube is connected to a bottle whereby it aerates in the
chest from a pneumothorax and as the patient breathes, the air is forced out
under the water and produces somewhat of a suction so that the lung will
reexpand and will not stay collapsed and this will give adequate aeration to the
body, and we decided to go ahead and put in a chest tube on the opposite side;
since I could not reach the opposite side due to the number of people that were
working on the President. Dr. Baxter
was over there helping Dr. Perry on that side, as well as Dr. Paul Peters, the
assistant head of urology here, and the three of us then inserted the chest tube
on the right side, primarily done by Dr. Baxter and Dr. Peters on the right
side.
Mr. SPECTER. Then what other treatment, if any, was afforded President
Kennedy?
Dr. JONES. After the tracheotomy was done, the intravenous fluid blood
was started--I believe that the President was also administered some
hydrocortisone because of his history of adrenal insufficiency, and at this time
an electrocardiogram had been connected and it showed no evidence of a
heartbeat. Closed cardiac massage
was then first begun by Dr. Perry and then I believe that after about 5 minutes
no significant or no myocardial activity was present and he was pronounced dead.
Mr. SPECTER. What history did you refer to of President Kennedy's adrenal
insufficiency ?
Dr. JONES. As I recall, there had been in news that the President had
several years ago been on some type of steroid therapy and that he possibly had
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Addison's
disease. We had no documented
evidence that he did or did not, but caution was taken nonetheless in case his
insufficiency was of severe enough nature, because at the time of severe trauma
a patient with adrenal insufficiency often goes into a rapid degree of adrenal
insufficiency and can expire from lack of steroids being produced from the
adrenal gland in such a stressed situation.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you obtain that history from Mrs. Kennedy, or any other
person on the scene?
Dr. JONES. No.
Mr. SPECTER. You just relied upon what had been occurring in the news?
Dr. JONES. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. What would that reaction cause, if anything, if the
President had no adrenal insufficiency?
Dr. JONES. This would not cause severe effects on any organ at all if the
adrenal gland were producing enough steroids.
Mr. SPECTER. Did any other doctors arrive during the time this treatment
was going on, other than those whom you have already mentioned?
Dr. JONES. Several doctors did subsequently appear in the room--Dr.
McClelland appeared shortly after Dr. Baxter, within a matter of just a very few
minutes, as well as Dr. Kemp Clark, who is head of neurosurgery here.
Mr. SPECTER. Any other doctors?
Dr. JONES. Dr. Jenkins was there and I think these are primarily the ones
that actually had any part, as far as taking care of the President, although
there were some other doctors in the room.
Mr. SPECTER. Dr. Jones, I now hand you a report which purports to bear
your signature, labeled "Summary of treatment of the President," dated
November 23, 1963, which I shall now ask the Court Reporter to mark as Dr.
Jones' Exhibit No. 1.
(Instrument mentioned marked by the Reporter as Dr. Jones' Exhibit No. 1,
for identification.)
Mr. SPECTER. I ask you if this in fact is your signature ?
Dr. JONES. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. And I ask you if this was the report which you submitted
concerning your participation of the treatment of President Kennedy?
Dr. JONES. Yes; it was.
Mr. SPECTER. In this report, Dr. Jones, you state the following,
"Previously described severe skull and brain injury was noted as well as a
small hole in anterior midline of the neck thought to be a bullet entrance
wound. What led you to the thought that it was a bullet entrance wound, sir?
Dr. JONES. The hole was very small and relatively clean cut, as you would
see in a bullet that is entering rather than exiting from a patient.
If this were an exit wound, you would think that it exited at a very low
velocity to produce no more damage than this had done, and if this were a
missile of high velocity, you would expect more of an explosive type of exit
wound, with more tissue destruction than this appeared to have on superficial
examination.
Mr. SPECTER. Would it be consistent, then, with an exit wound, but of low
velocity, as you put it?
Dr. JONES. Yes; of very low velocity to the point that you might think
that this bullet barely made it through the soft tissues and just enough to drop
out of the skin on the opposite side.
Mr. SPECTER. What is your experience, Doctor, if any, in the treatment of
bullet wounds?
Dr. JONES. During our residency here we have approximately 1 complete
year out of the 4 years on the trauma service here, and this is in addition to
the 2 months that we spend every other day and every other night in the
emergency room during our first year, so that we see a tremendous number of
bullet wounds here in that length of time, sometimes as many as four and five a
night.
Mr. SPECTER. Have you ever had any formal training in bullet wounds?
Dr. JONES. No.
Mr. SPECTER. Have you ever had occasion to observe a bullet wound which
was inflicted by a missile at approximate size of a 6.5 ram. bullet which passed
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through
the body of a person and exited from a neck without striking anything but soft
tissue from the back through the neck, where the missile came from a weapon of
the muzzle velocity of 2,000 feet per second, and the victim was in the vicinity
of 160 to 250 feet from the weapon?
Dr. JONES. No; I have not seen a missile of this velocity exit in the
anterior portion of the neck. I have seen it in other places of the body, but
not in the neck.
Mr. SPECTER. What other places in the body have you seen it, Dr. Jones?
Dr. JONES. I have seen it in the extremity and here it produces a massive
amount of soft tissue destruction.
Mr. SPECTER. Is that in the situation of struck bone or not struck bone
or what?
Dr. JONES. Probably where it has struck bone.
Mr. SPECTER. In a situation where it strikes bone, however, the bone
becomes so to speak a secondary missile, does it not, in accentuating the soft
tissue damage?
Dr. JONES. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. Dr. Jones, did you have any speculative thought as to
accounting for the point of wounds which you observed on the President, as you
thought about it when you were treating the President that day, or shortly
thereafter?
Dr. JONES. With no history as to the number of times that the President
had been shot or knowing the direction from which he had been shot, and seeing
the wound in the midline of the neck, and what appeared to be an exit wound in
the posterior portion of the skull, the only speculation that I could have as
far as to how this could occur with a single wound would be that would enter the
anterior neck and possibly strike a vertebral body and then change its course
and exit in the region of the posterior portion of the head. However, this
was--there was some doubt that a missile that appeared to be of this high
velocity would suddenly change its course by striking, but at the present-at
that time, if I accounted for it on the basis of one shot, that would have been
the way I accounted for it.
Mr. SPECTER. And would that account take into consideration the extensive
damage done to the top of the President's head ?
Dr. JONES. If this were the course of the missile, it probably--possibly
could have accounted for it, although I would possibly expect it to do a
tremendous amount of damage to the vertebral column that it hit and if this were
a high velocity missile would also think that the entrance wound would probably
be larger than the one that was present at the time we saw
Mr. SPECTER. Did you observe whether or not there was any damage to the
vertebral column ?
Dr. JONES. No, we could not see this.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you discuss this theory with any other doctor or
doctors?
Dr. JONES. Yes; this was discussed after the assassination.
Mr. SPECTER. With whom ?
Dr. JONES. With Dr. Perry--is the only one that I recall specifically,
and that was merely as to how many times the President was shot, because even
immediately after death, within a matter of 30 minutes, the possibility of a
second gunshot wound was entertained and that possibly he had been shot more
than once.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you observe any wound on the President's back?
Dr. JONES. No.
Mr. SPECTER. Was the President ever turned over?
Dr. JONES. Not while I was in the room.
Mr. SPECTER. What was he on when you first saw him?
Dr. JONES. He was on an emergency room cart, which is on wheels and can
be changed to varying heights and also varying positions, as far as elevating
the head or elevating the feet, lowering the head and so forth.
Mr. SPECTER. Was he ever taken off that cart from the time he was brought
into the emergency room to the time he was pronounced to be dead?
Dr. JONES. No.
Mr. SPECTER. Doctor, are you working toward board certification at this
time?
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Dr. JONES. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. And what is your status on your progress with that,
generally?
Dr. JONES. I will finish my formal training in surgery in July of this
year, which will complete 5 years of general surgery residency.
Mr. SPECTER. How old are you at the present time, Dr. Jones?
Dr. JONES. Thirty-one.
Mr. SPECTER. Have you discussed this matter with any representatives of
the Federal Government prior to today ?
Dr. JONES. Yes, I believe the Secret Service has been here on at least
two occasions.
Mr. SPECTER. And what did they ask you on those occasions?
Dr. JONES. I think, primarily, to verify that what I had written was true
and that I had been one of the first doctors to be in the room with the
President.
Mr. SPECTER. Did they ask you anything else other than that?
Dr. JONES. On one occasion they asked if there were any other pieces of
paper that had been written on as to the care that had been administered to the
President that I had not turned in, and I told them "No."
Mr. SPECTER. And did you and
I sit down and talk for a few minutes before we went on the record in this
deposition, with me indicating to you the general purpose and the line of
questioning, and you setting forth the same information which we have put on the
record here today?
Dr. JONES. Yes, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. Do you have
anything to add which you think might be helpful to the Commission in any way?
Dr. JONES. No, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. That concludes the deposition.
Thank you very much, Dr. Jones.
Dr. JONES. All right.
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