Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

Here's why the Thorburn hypothesis is totally misguided. Look at this cross-section of the neck:

The white line shows the supposed path of the Magic Bullet. The entry wound was just a little to the right of the spine at the back of the neck; isn't that what Gerald Ford told us?  I say "supposed" because I reject it. I do not think that anything like that actually happened to Kennedy. At the end of this article I will explain what I think really happened to him. But, this article is in response to those who espouse the Single Bullet Theory and who think that Kennedy was exhibiting a Thorburn reaction. Neither is true. A bullet did NOT traverse Kennedy's neck from back to front, and he did not exhibit a Thorburn reaction. So, what follows is me speaking theoretically about Kennedy's condition AS IF he had been injured in the manner alleged by officialdom.   

So, in reference to the above image, we are in the theoretical realm. You see the bullet trajectory just missing the spinal cord. Of course, it would have had to miss the spinal cord because if it blew through the spinal cord, JFK may have been killed outright, and he surely would have lost consciousness, and he surely would have gone down, collapsed into helplessness. There is no way he would been been able to continue to sit upright as we see him doing.  

So, from JFK's relatively good functional condition in the Z-film, we can be sure that he wasn't hit in the spinal cord. But, look at this diagram of the spinal nerves coming off the cord.

You've got ventral (front) and dorsal (back) rootlets coming off the cord which merge together forming the spinal nerve. Here's another image of it. 

So, although Kennedy could not have had his spinal cord blown out, if he had a big fat 6.5 mm Carcano bullet tunneling a hole through his neck from back to front, it could have destroyed nerve tissue. Think of it like electricity. If you cut the electrical wires to the motor, the motor doesn't work. In the case of muscles, it means paralysis. But, JFK's nerves were definitely intact and working.

What we know from the above picture is that all of Kennedy's cervical nerves and beyond were working. We can see that he is contracting his arms muscles, his neck muscles, and his back muscles. Nothing got cut. But, the Magic Bullet, were it real, would likely have bore through nerve tissue- even if it missed the cord. 

The other thing to think about is inflammation. A mammoth inflammatory process sets in after such a calamitous injury, and it represents an attempt at repairs, though it may be futile. And what makes it worse is that inflammation involves so much swelling that the mechanical pressure from the swelling causes a lot of disruption itself. And that's why steroids are often given, to suppress the inflammation. 

Look at the cross-section of the neck again:

Could the bullet have threaded in-between the nerves? Maybe, but it doesn't seem likely.  

And besides the likelihood of direct devastation of nerves, there would also be the effect of cavitation along the projectile path which would be very disruptive. There is simply no way that JFK suffered such a catastrophic injury because he's not that bad off. 

As I watch the Z-film, Connally seems worse off than Kennedy- until the fatal head shot. Even Jackie seems distracted. She shifts her eyes from her husband to Connally and for quite a while. JFK's muscles on both sides were working; there was no interruption of the nerve signals from the spine. And there is no significant difference between right and left. 

Why would he experience a Thorburn reaction when he suffered no damage to his spinal cord? Thorburn's patient had "complete transverse destruction" of the spinal cord. COMPLETE TRANSVERSE DESTRUCTION OF THE SPINAL CORD.  But, JFK had no destruction of his spinal cord. 

Let's look at a similar case in which a man incurred a posterior-to- anterior bullet that traversed his neck. 

"A 25-year-old African American man arrived at the emergency room approximately 30 minutes after sustaining a single gunshot wound to the left posterior cervical region. His chief complaints were neck pain and the inability to move any extremity. Systolic blood pressure before his arrival was reported to be 90 mm Hg (palpatory). Neurologic examination showed intact cranial nerve (II through XII) functions, with flaccid paralysis of all four extremities except for bilateral forearm flexion, which was possible against gravity. (meaning that he retained the ability to flex his forearms- not that he was in an involuntary Thorburn spasm) Sensory examination was intact for pin prick and light touch throughout. Deep tendon reflexes were absent bilaterally. Rectal sphincter tone was decreased, with preserved bulbocavernosus reflex. The bullet entrance wound was in the left posterior cervical region, above and medial to the left scapula. The exit wound was midline in the anterior aspect of the neck. A bullet fragment was palpable in the left anterior aspect of the neck, lateral to the cricoid cartilage. A large left anterior neck hematoma was present. Both carotid pulses were palpable, and there were no carotid bruits. Initial radiographic studies showed multiple bullet fragments dispersed in the left side of the neck and multiple fractures of the cervical spine at the levels of C6, C7, and T1."

"Findings on the initial workup were consistent with a zone II neck injury, resulting in hypotension and neck hematoma as well as cervical spine injury with an incomplete motor deficit at the C5 level. Since the patient had an absolute indication for neck exploration, he was taken immediately to the operating room. Surgical exploration of the left anterior cervical region revealed an extensive hematoma and a lacerated left external jugular vein, which was ligated. The hyoid bone was fractured and repaired.
Postoperatively, the patient was taken immediately to the radiology suite for computed tomography (CT) of the cervical spine and cervical and cerebral angiography. Cervical spine CT without contrast medium revealed multiple bullet fragments extending from C6 to T1; comminuted fractures of the left transverse processes of C6, C7, and T1; and a 3-mm bullet fragment inside the spinal canal, against the left inner laminar surface at the level of C6 (Fig 2)."

"Cervical and cerebral angiography showed the left vertebral artery thrombosed at 2 cm from its origin (Fig 3) and mild diffuse spasm of the right vertebral artery, with reflux into the left vertebral artery up to the C5 level, covering the posterior inferior cerebellar artery territory. The posterior circulation run-off and the carotid system were normal."

"Cervical angiography shows aortic arch with left vertebral artery thrombosed 2 cm from origin. Postoperatively, on serial neurologic examinations the patient showed significant improvement. At the time of this writing, he is able to walk without assistance and move all extremities against significant resistance."

This guy obviously had much more extensive damage than JFK. This guy had comminuted fractures, meaning that a bone was fractured into multiple pieces, of C6, C7, and T1. Nothing that extensive was going on with Kennedy. 

But, this young black man experienced no Thorburn reaction. Instead, he had flaccid paralysis of all four extremities. It went down just as Dr. Jan Leestma said it would:  

"It seems to me that a reaction such as that would just never occur. I don't care if the sixth cervical segment was severed or just touched, the nerves in that area would not go into an immediate neurological reaction with arms flying up; they would fall limp. When you physically shock any nerve, the last thing it does is fire. It classically becomes electrically silent. Whether the spinal cord is directly hit or grazed, the nerve cords extending beyond the actual spine would be affected and fall silent."

OK, so here is what really happened to Kennedy: He got struck in his upper back a little to the right of the spine, and it was the level of T2 or T3, according to the autopsy photo. It definitely couldn't have been higher than T2. 

Of course, the other thing we need to consider is that they may have messed with the autopsy photo. When I look at JFK's clothing, the hole there seems to be lower than this. But, if the photo on the left is accurate, then the highest it can be is T2. 

But, it was angled downward and quite a lot. Dr. Humes estimated the angle to be 45%. I'm sure it wasn't as great as that, but it was great. It most likely came from the roof of the County Records Building, which was a higher elevation than the 6th floor of the TSBD. 

That bullet just wounded him superficially, and it really was of no medical consequence. It is speculated that it may have been a drug-laced ice bullet. I don't know about that but I'm open to it. But, it definitely did not traverse him. How do we know that? We know it from observing his condition in the Zapruder film which was not that bad prior to the fatal head shot. 

Then, he was struck from the front with a small caliber missile to his throat, and that bullet did not traverse him either. It had to occur almost simultaneous with the shot to his back. What happened to it I do not know. It may have been extracted at the pre-autopsy. And if the back bullet was a regular bullet and not an ice bullet, then it was dug out at the pre-autopsy too.

An interesting thing to wonder about is how much damage the frontal throat bullet did. It must have damaged his trachea, but we have to assume he was getting sufficient air. He would have looked awfully different in the Z-film otherwise. 

But, maybe there is something to this ice bullet idea because Kennedy was a military man, and he was already warned that there could be attempts on his life. The big question is: WHY DIDN'T KENNEDY DUCK? And I don't mean because somebody told him to duck but on his own initiative. He was shot in the back, and he was shot in the throat. That's two shots. He may have heard the first shot that missed. So, that's three shots. If after all that firing and wounding, he didn't have the good sense to duck and get his wife to duck and to tell the others to duck, something was wrong with him. Do you agree that he looks rather drugged and dopey in the Zapruder film, like he was mentally out of it? Maybe he was and not from shock but from intoxication.