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 mm. bullet which passed 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?