Booth's broken fibula

[RJNorton]

Bob, could Dr. Mudd have been wrong? From what I have read a broken tibia is much more serious than a broken fibula. Remember that the original stories from Ford's eyewitnesses didn't even say Booth had a limp as he moved across the stage. (Only in later years did a limp enter the stories.) I read somewhere that this would have been impossible had Booth broken his tibia, not his fibula. In the article it said a person might not even be able to walk unaided on a broken tibia, let alone escape from the theater.

Of course if the break occurred during the horse fall maybe I (and Dr. Lattimer) could be wrong. But I still feel it was a broken fibula no matter where it happened.

I know I once saw a football game in which a player broke his tibia. He could not even get up and had to be carted off the field.

Here is what Dr. Barnes wrote in his account of the autopsy:

"The left leg and foot were encased in an appliance of splints and bandages, upon the removal of which, a fracture of the fibula (small bone of the leg) 3 inches above the ankle joint, accompanied by considerable ecchymosis, was discovered."