Brain surgeon testifies Karen Reads cop boyfriend died from fall on frozen ground in trial

John O’Keefe died from falling backwards and hitting his head on frozen ground, according to a Yale-educated brain surgeon who testified Wednesday in the murder trial of Karen Read.Read, 45, is accused of killing her then-boyfriend, the 46-year-old O’Keefe, by hitting him with her 2021 Lexus SUV on Jan.29, 2022, then leaving him to die on the ground in a blizzard in Canton, Massachusetts, about 20 miles south of Boston.The head trauma and skull fractures he sustained, coupled with hypothermia from the cold, would not have killed him immediately, according to Dr.

Aizik Wolf, who testified he treated many similar injuries in his career working in Minneapolis.“The only way he could get this kind of an injury was to fall backwards, hit the back of his head, and then the resulting energy forces going into his brain, into the base of his skull,” he told the jury during questioning from special prosecutor Hank Brennan. O’Keefe suffered “a classic blunt-trauma injury,” Wolf said. O’Keefe fell backwards and hit his head, Wolf said, and the force of the impact fractured his skull and later resulted in “raccoon eyes,” which look like black eyes.“This is what happens when soft tissue hits a solid ground,” he testified.Swelling in the victim’s brain would have killed him under normal circumstances, usually within 24 to 48 hours, according to Wolf.Some victims have died in as little as one to three.In the January nor’easter, O’Keefe’s body temperature also tanked.

When paramedics found him at 6 a.m., his temperature was just 80 degrees, below the threshold for what medical professionals call “severe hypothermia.”Wolf said he treated many patients with similar injuries early in his career, when he worked in a Minneapolis trauma center.The city can be brutally cold during winter.Many of the wounds were fatal.Some were inflicted on drunken patients who slipped on the ice.Others involved people who fell over after suffering a heart attack.“Th...