The skull fracture

So here I go again...

Having had very recent experience with a skull fracture that did not cause displacement of bone, I have been re-considering JonBenet's horrendous injury...

I have never believed that she struck an object to get such a fracture. With as much hair as she had, it would have taken a tremendous FORCE for that kind of injury to happen, even if she pulled away and hit the bed post, etc. She probably would have ended up with a scalp bruise or a cut, maybe a concussion. My son's fracture happened when he hit pavement going at quite a clip, flipped off his skateboard without a helmet. He was probably knocked out for a few seconds and when he came to, was screaming in distress or pain (he doesn't remember), and bleeding from his right ear (that's where the fracture was). It's not a huge fracture although he had quite a bit of velocity when he struck the ground. But he had a small amount of bleeding within his skull, a LOT of swelling externally, and narrowly missed losing his hearing permanently on that side. Oh, and there was no scalp laceration at all. (He's recovering very nicely, praise Almighty God.)

How this ties into JonBenet...After this accident, although it doesn't make me an expert in skull fractures, I really think that SHE did not strike something, but that something struck her head. And it was a hard blow, and that would mean that whoever did it, it was intentional at that moment. I do not believe that a parent losing grip on a wiggly child, and the child striking the edge of a bathtub, would cause such a long, deep, and displaced fracture.

I'm sure others have discussed this before, I just wanted to give my new, personal perspective on that head injury.

 

Oh my goodness Heymom

First, and most important, I am so glad that your son escaped permanent injury. Head wounds are scary and I am sorry to hear this, but glad it isn't worse and life threatening.

Kids are the reason we age

I have always believed that she was struck and didn't slip or fall. Actually I am one of those who still wouldn't be shocked to learn that Burke was somehow responsible, either accidentally or otherwise.

Regardless, I hope all stays well for you and your little one

Oh, and for the record, don't think for one minute you are any less of a hag than the rest of us. Just because you are the keeper of the oreos doesn't excuse you from hagdom!

 

Thanks, Barbara, I wouldn't have brought it up, except that after all the scary stuff had gone away somewhat, I started thinking about how JonBenet's skull was so deeply injured, and comparing how my son fell onto pavement with some amount of velocity, yet did not have any displacement of his skull, just a fracture. It still put him in ICU for 2 days of observation, and since we were in a very remote area, he got a copter ride to the hospital.

Yes, kids are the reason we age, and the reason our hearts are broken again and again, and why we have grey hair. I am more responsible for the accident than he is, though, because I not only allowed him to ride without a helmet, I drove him to the hill he went down and fell off his board at the bottom. What was I thinking? I have no idea, never dreamed he would fall. We don't have hills in our town and he was doing fine until the last 10 feet when he wiggled the board and the next thing I knew he was on the ground.

I can tell you the sheer panic when you see your child bleeding from the ear and basically non-responsive...not unconscious, but screaming...and your cell phone won't work...in a sort of valley and out of the service area...panic does not even describe it. Thankfully other people came along to help.

I doubt that the Ramsey household was quiet that Christmas night. If JonBenet was unconscious, I would bet that someone was screaming, or at least crying, and it may have been Patsy. I sure was screaming at my son not to move, because I was afraid he had other injuries, but he couldn't hear me.

I don't know how the Ramseys managed to lie all these years about something so terrible. If anything had happened to my son I would probably have tried to kill myself. It's the worst thing I can imagine. I would give my life for either of my sons.

(Hmmmm, John Ramsey said something like that, only it was "I regret that I wasn't able to give my life for JonBenet that night...")

 

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, no bleeding from JonBenet's ear.

Best wishes to you and your bouncing baby boy Heymom.

 

Heymom,
Glad to hear that your son is recovering. What a scary time that must have been for both you and your son.

I waver back and forth about JBR's injury. At times I feel certain that PR accidentally dropped her daughter as she shook her or I think that JBR was squirming around wildly in her mother's arms and her mom dropped her.

Yet I can't ignore the shape of the skull wound. That makes me lean towards the skull injury being caused by a golf club or the wiped down flashlight.


Paradox,
I need to check ACR's site. I thought there was a small amt of blood present in or around JBR's ear.

 

Best wishes to your son for his recovery, Heymom.

I agree that JB would not have gotten her skull fracture from a fall (or from pulling away) alone, but what if someone in a total rage yanked her around and slammed her head against an object like e. g.the sink or the bathtub? The sink edge for example is quite similar in shape to the dislodged piece of skull bone.

 

me too

I am also a firm believer that her head injury was caused by an object striking her head. I think you would have to swing her pretty fast or hard for there to be enough momentum to cause that fracture. I have heard of a child being swung by the feet and hitting a wall that caused a tremendous head wound though.

 

Paradox, sometimes you crack me up. He cracks himself up, hopefully this will be the last time. If I have anything to say about it, it was the last time.

 

I would be very surprised, knowing what I now know, if JonBenet did not bleed from at least the ear that was on the same side as the injury. That is where the blood naturally tries to get out. It is when there is too much bleeding and it pools inside the head that the pressure goes up and they have to put in a shunt. They did not try to stop the bleeding even when he was in ICU, which was a little distressing, but they said it should keep bleeding so his skull pressure wouldn't go up. It bled for several hours.

If JonBenet's injury was bleeding through her ear, it probably kept bleeding while she was alive. She must have died fairly quickly, or her mom and dad wouldn't have had time to wash her body and get her wrapped and put into the basement for the morning event. Maybe they did finally strangle her with the cord, but then did they wash her after that? Doesn't seem to fit the forensic evidence. I'm thinking she died from the head injury.

 

Tylin, I realize my son is older and his skull is probably harder now...But I just cannot imagine the force it would take for that to happen to JonBenet. I just cannot believe that was any accident. Whatever happened, I believe that the injury was intentional at that moment. Not just a mom who was wrestling with an uncooperative child.

If JonBenet had been a baby, *maybe* dropping her would cause that injury, but even then, I'm not sure. It would be interesting to find statistics about skull displacement fractures. If I hadn't been so upset and freaked out, I would have asked the neurosurgeon about that.

 

Only if it was intentional, not accidental. Our skulls are pretty good protectors for our brains, and not easily broken. I am thinking JonBenet might have had a scalp laceration, maybe a concussion, passed out for a minute, but woke up crying. No, I think it happened intentionally, in a moment of rage. Whose rage, we may never know, or what the rage was caused by.

Also, JonBenet's skull fracture is in a location where it doesn't look as if a fall or hit against an object would be likely. My son fell onto the pavement on his right side first, and right behind his ear is where his injury is. Unless he had twisted onto his neck as he fell, that's as high up as he could have been injured.

 

Heymom, my son was a skateboarder when he was a teen, and I worried constantly about him. He never got a serious injury, but it was a miracle, because he told me about other kids with whom he skated who got hurt. When I see what they do today on skateboards, I wonder that moms don't have a nervous breakdown. Glad your son is okay. HELMET!

I don't believe that there was a fall that caused JonBenet's head injury, either. Like Barbara, I wonder if Burke wasn't the one who struck the head blow. I think it was Dr. Wecht's book--though I'd have to look it up again to be sure, so maybe someone else remembers--where it was written that Burke kept John's large Maglight in his bedroom. I don't know if that's true, but it is a possibility. Statistically, brothers are far and away the primary molesters of their younger siblings. JAR's bedroom was in the closest proximity to JonBenet's, as well--and somewhere through the history of this case, the RST went to a lot of trouble to change the label of "JAR's room" to "guest room". JAR's close friends at college in Boulder told a reporter that JAR talked about JonBenet all the time, how much he loved her and how beautiful she was. That always gave me the creeps, seeing as how JAR was in college, where young men are usually talking about how they love a young woman. Of course, JonBenet looked like a young woman when Patsy got finished with her.

Anyhow...we'll never know. I hope it was neither of the brothers, because that would mean that the actions of one or both of them ended in the death of their sister and the destruction of their family's reputation for generations to come, a heavy burden to carry for a lifetime, I imagine. But it would make sense that the parents would then go to the extremes they did to cover up the abuse, to me: two daughters gone, was there a son's freedom now hanging in the balance? If it was JAR, he'd be a registered sex offender...well, not in BOULDER, he wouldn't, but I guess the Ramseys couldn't have known that on that night. Burke--might have been removed into some kind of custody, branded for life, etc.

Of course, I don't know that either of these Ramsey males had anything to do with the chain of events that night. If the Ramseys wanted to clear that up, they'd have told the truth instead of devastating the lives of so many innocent people to keep it hidden. Obviously, the Ramseys were hiding something so awful they would do ANYTHING to keep it from coming out. I vote for incest.--the BIGGEST taboo.

 

KK, I don't think it could have been John Andrew because he was nowhere near Boulder that night. Wasn't he cleared of any suspicion? Not to say he might not have molested JonBenet at some point, but that he wasn't there the night of 12/26/96.

Burke or John are the more likely suspects, I think. I suppose it could have been Patsy who did it, too, but there is just something very nasty about John that makes me think he could have done it.

I was nearly going to throw the custom board away, right at the hospital as son lay in ICU...but I didn't, and he would have been furious at me had I done that. The pediatric neurosurgeon told me "next time he is on the skateboard, he has to wear a helmet." I said, "NEXT TIME??? WHAT NEXT TIME???" and like a man, he said, "He should get back on it, but make sure he wears protective equipment." I said, "Well, I'm a mom, and you're probably a dad, and that's the difference right there."

Plus, he's never seen his kid basically out of it and bleeding from the ear, screaming in pain, and helicoptered to the hospital, while we had to drive 1 1/2 hours praying all the way. Hubby wasn't even on this trip - I had to lie to him and pretend all was well, he called as older son and I were driving. After we found out what was happening, had seen younger son in the ER and spoken to the doctor, then I called hubby and told him. He yelled for several minutes.

Not somethng I'd wish on my worst enemy, I can tell you. :unreal:

 

After kids, hubbies age you :heart: :winko:

 

I can attest to that. :wave:

I have a 16 yr old and a 52 yr old husband. They both irritate me equally. :floor:

 

:floor: LOLOLOL! My 16-year-old knows when to leave me alone, but the hubby refuses to be trained, so he gets the cold shoulder when I've had enough contact...poor thing.

 

Heymom,
I do the same thing. :cheerful:

 

I spent a year chasing down JAR's alibi the night of the 25th. I know the story, and the problems with it. While I won't take him off my list--for a number of reasons, he's at the bottom of it. But as far as the prior molestation, he's on the short list, IMO.

What a brave mom you are, heymom. I'd have blamed it all on hubby before I set foot out the door. heh

 

KK, I'm not clever enough to blame anyone else!

Nah, really, I know it's my own responsibility to stand up to our son when he wants to do something stupid, like skating without a helmet. He's a very strong-willed person and I'm sorry to say that he has tried to rule the house with his bullying nature, and sometimes it works. You know how they tell you to pick your battles with your kids? Well, sometimes you take the easy way out and do a McClellan (run away from fighting). At least, *I* do. I've never liked a fight and this boy gets super-charged from conflict. (He'd make a great fighter but he can't join b/c he has a medical condition.)

Hubby HAS to take on more responsibility with this son, because there are times when he has looked me in the eye and drew a line..."You can't MAKE me!" And since he's basically a short man, he's right, I can't. But I can make it damned unpleasant for him if he doesn't do what we tell him to...

I am working on always taking responsibility for my own mistakes, and making amends as soon as possible. Hubby has his own failings to deal with, but it's not fair for me to pile on. Bless him, it's really a miracle we ever had children based on the childhood he had.

 

Heymom, don't be too hard on yourself or Stubborn Son. I have come to the conclusion if you can keep them alive until they're 18, you've done your job. Anything above that is gravy.

I found this Ramsey case webpage today, and I haven't seen it before. I haven't read it throughly, but it seems quite interesting:

http://216.109.125.130/search/cache...otes+patsy+2000&d=EwVCkeljO62e&icp=1&.intl=us