Mr. Specter.

and a half or 2 inches above the wrist joint. It was a little to the radial side of the wrist area.
There was a second wound in the wrist on the volar surface, about a centimeter and a half proximal to the distal flexion crease and this wound was a transverse laceration no more than a centimeter in length and did not gape.

Mr. Specter.

When you say on the dorsal aspect, what is that?
Dr. GREGORY. In lay terms, that's equivalent to the back of the hand.

Mr. Specter.

And the volar is equivalent to what?
Dr. GREGORY. The palm surface of the hand.

Mr. SPECTER. What conclusion, if any, did you reach as to which was the wound of entry and exit on the wrist ?
Dr. GREGORY. Based on certain findings in the wound at the time the debridement was carried out--

Mr. Specter.

Will you define debridement before you proceed with that?

Dr. GREGORY. Yes; debridement is a surgical term used to designate that procedure in attending a wound which removes by sharp excision all nonvital tissue in the area together with any identifiable foreign objects.
In attending this wound, it was evident early that clot had been carried into the wound from the dorsal surface to the bone and into the fracture. This would imply that an irregular missile had passed through the wrist from the dorsal to the volar aspect.
Mr. SPECTER. Now, were there any characteristics in the volar aspect which would indicate that it was a wound of exit?
Dr. GREGORY. No; there were none, really. It was my assumption that the missile had expended much of its remaining energy in passing through the radius bone, which it did before it could emerge through the soft tissues.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you observe any foreign objects identifiable as bits of fragments or portions of a bullet missile?
Dr. GREGORY. A preliminary X-ray had indicated that there were metallic fragments or at least metallic fragments which cast metallic shadows in the soft tissues around the wounded forearm. Two or three of these were identified and were recovered and were observed to be metallic in consistency. These were turned over to appropriate authorities for further disposition.
Mr. SPECTER. Approximately how large were those fragments, Dr. Gregory?
Dr. GREGORY. I would judge that they were first--fiat, rather thin, and that their greatest dimension would probably not exceed one-eighth of an inch. They were very small.
Mr. SPECTER. Would you have sufficient experience with gunshot wounds to comment as to whether a 6.5-mm. bullet could have passed through the Governor's wrist in the way you have described, leaving the fragments which you have described and still have virtually all the bullet missile intact, or having 158 grains of a bullet at that time?
Dr. GREGORY. Well, I am not an expert on ballistics, but one cannot escape certain ballistic implications in this business.
I would say, first of all, that how much of the missile remains intact as a mass depends to some extent on how hard the metal is. Obviously, if it is very soft, as lead, it may lose more fragments and therefore more weight and volume than it might if it is made of a harder material or is jacketed in some way.
Now, the energy in the missile is a product, not so much of its mass as it is of its velocity, for by doubling the velocity, you can increase the kinetic energy in the force it transmits, fourfold, since the formula for determining energy in these cases is a matter of mass times velocity squared, rather than just linear functional velocity. So, some knowledge of how much of the cartridge force might have been behind the missile would be useful here too.
Mr. SPECTER. For the purpose of this consideration, I am interested to know whether the metal which you found in the wrist was of sufficient size so that the bullet which passed through the wrist could not have emerged virtually completely intact or with 158 grains intact, or whether the portions of the metallic fragments were so small that that would be consistent with having Virtually the entire 6.5-mm. bullet emerge.
Dr. GREGORY. Well, considering the small volume of metal as seen by X-ray, and the very small dimensions of the metal which was recovered, I think several