If he had survived, would he have recovered sufficiently to be able to resume his presidency, or would he have been a perpetual invalid?
As a premise to my question, let me say that I’m assuming that there were 3 shots fired on JFK on November 22, 1963. The 1st one missed. The 2nd one entered his upper back region and exited the front of his neck. And the 3rd shot was a fatal blow to the head. My question concerns the likelihood of surviving the neck wound.
Thanks to all who reply.
Hard to say. The records are so botched that we really don’t know for sure what the damage was. On the surface, it looks like the bullet missed the carotid artery, which is a plus.
I’d say that, with prompt surgical care, JFK could have survived the 2nd shot. He might have lost his voice, but he would have survived.
(Is it rude to resurrect your own Zombie thread?)
Only 1 person speculated on this question last time I posted it. Does nobody else have an opinion? If JFK had survived, would he have been in control of his faculties, if not his voice? Would this nation have accommodated a mute president?
I don’t see how the second shot would have affected anything other than his voice.
Kennedy could still have remained president and give his opinions by writing things down. Speeches would be either released to the press or read by someone else. The State of the Union was just a letter to Congress for over a century; it could have gone back to that.
I read that the shock wave from the bullet, which came very close to the spinal cord, would have paralysed him. Whether temporarily or permanently is another question (he did involuntarily raise both of his fists to his throat, a symptom of the shock wave affecting his nervous system).
“Course of the missile through the body”, from the Pathology Panel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (1979).
The carotid artery was not injured (p. 102). The autopsy physicians also wrote that, “As far as can be ascertained, this missile struck no bony structures in its path through the body.”(p. 101) The trachea was injured; JFK may have had trouble speaking had he survived.
JFK had Addison’s disease which would have complicated his possible recovery. The doctors who treated him did not know this and so they probably would not have been able to save him.
Cite? I find it hard to believe he’d involuntarily raise his hands to near the point of trauma as an involuntary reaction caused by a shockwave affecting his CNS.
ETA: Welcome to the Department of Redundancy Department.
I’ve read that in several books, 'tis all.
Gerald Posner’s “Case Closed,” for one, I’m pretty sure. I think his point was that JFK was not actually raising his hands to his throat, but that was an involuntary response to the shock wave trauma.
The problem with any “what if?” question like this is that injury results vary so widely. There was a person sent to the ER with rebar stabbed through his heart, but the heart was still beating. Good old Phineas Gage had a spike blown straight through his brain and survived with little more than personality changes. You can see the same kind of issues in recovery: doctors are sure one guy will never walk and yet he runs a marathon; another who should have survived dies of some unexpected complication.
So it’s not a surprise that there’s no real consensus about Kennedy, especially when there’s so little consensus about seemingly straightforward questions like the number of shots or the direction they came from.
Is three-quarters of the witnesses a consensus?
76.7% of earwitness said there were three shots.
10.5% said one or two shots.
8.7% said four or more shots.
4.1% said two or three shots.