Dr. Shires. Only from hearsay from Dr. Shaw, that's all.
Mr. Specter. Do you have any knowledge as to what fragments there were in the chest, bullet fragments, if any?
Dr. Shires. No, again except from postoperative X-rays, there is a small fragment remaining, but the initial fragments I think Dr. Shaw saw before I arrived.
Mr. Specter. How about the fragments in the wrist, do you have any knowledge of that?
Dr. Shires. Again, there were small fragments which I saw during the procedure on the wrist, but I was not directly involved in that procedure.
Mr. Specter. What opinion do you have, if any, Dr. Shires, as to whether the wound in the thigh might have been inflicted from a missile that did not pass through any other part of the Governor's body, assuming that it was a 6.5-mm. bullet with a muzzle velocity of 2,000 feet per second, traveling approximately 160 to 250 feet between the end of the weapon and the point of impact on the thigh?
Dr. Shires. Well, again, in that wound—it was strange in that the hole in the skin was too large for the amount of damage inflicted on the underlying tissues, so that had this been the case, this would have had to have been a tangential wound. Had it been a tangential wound, then it's possible that small fragments could have gone into bone as it did and that the damage to the soft tissues was done only by that small fragment, so that the major portion of the bullet simply hit the skin in a tangent and went on in its course elsewhere.
Mr. Specter. Well, is it possible that the bullet could have hit Governor Connally with the thigh being the initial point of impact and do the damage which was done there with the high velocity missile that I have just described for you?
Dr. Shires. Is it possible to get a wound like that?
Dr. Specter. Yes, sir.