Commonwealth v. Read — Trial ArchiveAndrew Rentschler - Direct (Part 1)
264 linesCOURT CLERK: Sir, do you swear before this court and jury to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I do. Good afternoon.
JUDGE CANNONE: Very good. All right, Mr. Jackson, whenever you're ready.
MR. JACKSON: Thank you, your honor. Sir, could you please — yeah, pull that to you. You're a little on the tall side. Pull that to you right up under your chin if you can. And in a nice clear voice, tell the jurors your name and spell your last name for us, please.
DR. RENTSCHLER: Dr. Andrew John Rentschler. R-E-N-T-S-C-H-L-E-R.
MR. JACKSON: Sir, what do you do for a living?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I'm a biomechanist, a biomechanical engineer, and an accident reconstructionist.
MR. JACKSON: Where do you work?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I work for a company called ARCCA.
MR. JACKSON: Tell us a little bit about ARCCA. What is ARCCA?
DR. RENTSCHLER: ARCCA is an engineering consulting firm. So we do litigation type work — both civil and criminal — where we look at — for instance, I do biomechanics, so I look at injury causation in different types of events: motor vehicle accidents, pedestrian-automobile incidents, sports-related injuries, industrial accidents. We also do accident reconstruction, as well as all types of forensic engineering, and we also do R&D — research and development — for private and governmental entities.
MR. JACKSON: What's your current title?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I'm a vice president and director of biomechanics for the Midwest division.
MR. JACKSON: The director position that you hold?
DR. RENTSCHLER: That's the official position at ARCCA. That's correct. Yes, sir.
MR. JACKSON: How — are you ARCCA's senior biomechanist?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I'm one of them. Yes.
MR. JACKSON: And how long have you held the position of director of biomechanics and human factors?
DR. RENTSCHLER: It's been at least five years. I don't recall exactly how long.
MR. JACKSON: What exactly does a — is it biomechanist or biomechanist?
DR. RENTSCHLER: Biomechanist.
MR. JACKSON: Yeah. All right. I'll get it right by the time we're finished. What is a biomechanist? What do you do?
DR. RENTSCHLER: So a biomechanist really looks at the human body, and we look at the response of the human body to forces and accelerations. We apply traditional engineering — but to the human body. So a mechanical engineer, for instance, might look at a piece of steel, and the dimensions and size of the steel — if you apply a force in a certain direction with a certain magnitude, that steel will bend and eventually it'll break. As a biomechanist — or biomechanical engineer — I do the same thing, but I look at the human body: how much force has to be applied in what direction to get a specific type of injury — whether it's a fracture of your humerus, a concussion, a vertebral disc injury — any type of injury has what we call an injury mechanism.
DR. RENTSCHLER: So we look at the response of how the body reacts to forces in different environments. Ultimately our hope is to actually help prevent and mitigate accidents — motor vehicle incidents. We look at the design of airbags and seat belts, sporting equipment, how can we reduce concussions and injuries associated with that. So ultimately we try to figure out how to make the environment and the world safer for people in whatever type of interaction you might have.
MR. JACKSON: Is that sometimes called injury causation analysis?
DR. RENTSCHLER: It is. That's one aspect of it. Injury causation analysis is looking at how an injury occurs. So if someone sustains an injury, as a biomechanist, I can look at the events surrounding that incident and determine how the injury occurred — how someone was positioned, how much force had to have been applied to certain parts of their body to actually produce a given injury.
MR. JACKSON: Why is injury causation analysis important in the broader field of biomechanics? Why do you want to know the causation of certain injuries?
DR. RENTSCHLER: Well, like I just said, our main goal and interest is to really mitigate and prevent injuries from occurring. So in order to do that, you have to know how they occur. You have to know — for instance, hockey, we do a lot of work with the NHL — how certain injuries occur: cervical injuries, concussions, shoulder injuries. So if your intent is to prevent injuries in certain settings and situations, you have to study how the body reacts, how those injuries are created, and then you can determine or attempt to determine how to prevent them from occurring in different events and situations.
MR. JACKSON: What sort of contracts or commissions does ARCCA routinely engage in?
DR. RENTSCHLER: We have a number of different contracts. We've worked in the past with the United States military. I helped design what we call the energy absorbing seat for the MRAP vehicles.
MR. JACKSON: Hold on one second.
DR. RENTSCHLER: Sure.
MR. JACKSON: Okay.
DR. RENTSCHLER: For the MRAP, which are the mine resistant ambush protected armor-plated vehicles that they had over in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the issue there is that when they go over an IED, an improvised explosive device, it would blow the vehicle up off the ground. So we were seeing very severe accelerations and forces going through the vehicle, through the seat, into the soldier spines, and we were seeing severe spinal and head injuries as a result of that. So we worked with the military to design what we call an energy absorbing seat design. As the vehicle gets blasted up off the ground, the seat is designed to absorb that energy and that force from the blast and the movement of the vehicle and help protect the soldier's spine. We also, as I said, do a lot of work with the NHL.
DR. RENTSCHLER: We work with the department of player safety, the National Hockey League. We look at the equipment, we look at helmets, trying to help prevent concussions, skate guards, how to prevent cuts and injuries. And the skates — one of the big things we did was actually redesign part of the rink. It used to be that at the end of the player area was a 90° stanchion of plexiglass. And what was happening was players were getting checked into the boards at the player area and then slamming up against the glass and they were sustaining head and cervical injuries. It was actually Boston and Montreal that caused the NHL to take a look at it — the hit of Chara on Pacioretty. He sustained a concussion and a cervical fracture.
DR. RENTSCHLER: So they gave us part of the rink — the Winter Classic, the outdoor contest — and we used crash test dummies, Hybrid III 50th percentile male dummies, and threw them into different configurations of glass. And ultimately, the new design that we developed is a curved piece of spring-loaded lexan or plexiglass. So now when the players get checked into the boards, it absorbs that impact and they glance off of it, and it's helped prevent and pretty much mitigate any type of head or neck injuries as a result of player interaction at that part of the rink.
MR. JACKSON: Hockey players tend to be pretty big guys, right?
DR. RENTSCHLER: They do. Yes.
MR. JACKSON: You said you used the 50th percentile Hybrid III as a crash test dummy — an ATD — to do your work in furtherance of the NHL contract or commission. Correct?
DR. RENTSCHLER: That's correct.
MR. JACKSON: Did you need to use a Hybrid III that was the same size as these big tall 6'4" 230lb hockey players?
DR. RENTSCHLER: No, not at all.
MR. JACKSON: Why not?
DR. RENTSCHLER: There's a 95th percentile male dummy, which not many people have or use. The 50th percentile male is basically the gold standard for crash test dummies. And you're probably most familiar with it if you see automotive manufacturers and the ads on TV where they put the crash test dummy in the car and run them into walls and flip them over. Well, they use the 50th percentile for all of those tests and then they scale the actual injury assessment reference values to different sized people. So they record the force off of that and they might say, "Well, for the 50th percentile average person, you can sustain 180 gs of acceleration to the head before you see a severe injury."
DR. RENTSCHLER: And then they'll scale that and say, "Well, the Hybrid III has to record, say, 300 gs before someone twice that size gets hurt." So you just use one size dummy and then you scale that to whatever size person you're looking at or want to actually investigate.
MR. JACKSON: Is that undertaking of mathematical scaling an industry standard in biomechanics?
DR. RENTSCHLER: Absolutely. And it's set forth in NHTSA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. They set — the government sets the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards — and that's all the crash tests that vehicles have to go through. And during those tests, they have to ensure that the values on the dummy — on the head, on the neck, on the spine, on the arms — are below certain values to ensure that they're safe at specific speeds. And they scale — they have certain papers, a lot of papers actually, which talk about scaling the values for different sized people.
MR. JACKSON: Is that an accepted methodology in the scientific community?
DR. RENTSCHLER: Oh, it certainly is. Yes, sir.
MR. JACKSON: Dr. Rentschler, do you specialize in any particular research and analysis at ARCCA to evaluate the relationships between crash injuries and crash forces?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I do. Yes.
MR. JACKSON: What about kinematics?
DR. RENTSCHLER: Kinematics is one of the specialties. Yes, sir.
MR. JACKSON: Fancy word. Probably nobody knows. I didn't know it before I met some of the folks involved in this case. What does kinematics mean?
DR. RENTSCHLER: Kinematics is just motion of the human body. So it's looking at how the body moves in different situations — whether you're in a vehicle and it hits a wall, how does your body move forward? Will it load into the seat belt? Does the airbag deploy? Or if you're a pedestrian and you're struck by a car, how does the body move as a result of that interaction? That allows us to look at the loading to the body. Forces are exerted on someone's body because their body's loaded by different objects or different forces. So kinematics is one of the first steps. If you're going to look at injury causation, you have to determine the kinematics of an event — what human tolerance is. Human tolerance is really just looking at how much force it takes to cause an injury.
DR. RENTSCHLER: So there's been generations of testing to look at different forces. For instance, the humerus — the upper bone in your upper arm — how much force does it take to cause that fracture? They've tested the cadaver bones. There's a lot of research for decades out there looking at different parts of the body — the ulna, the radius, the two bones in your forearm, skull fractures — almost any type of injury again has an injury mechanism. And in order to determine how it occurs, we have to look at tolerance. How much force can the body withstand before you start to see a specific injury occur?
MR. JACKSON: Doctor, how long have you worked at ARCCA?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I've been with ARCCA now for about 17 and a half years.
MR. JACKSON: How many cases have you been a part of in terms of investigating or conducting crash injury analysis?
DR. RENTSCHLER: Over my whole career, probably thousands of cases. I've been doing this since 2004, so for about 21 years total.
MR. JACKSON: Dr. Rentschler, are you able to estimate how many of those cases — those potentially thousands of cases — have involved motor vehicle pedestrian circumstances?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I'm sure over the years there's been hundreds of cases. A lot of them are motor vehicle on motor vehicle accidents, but certainly a large percent are automobile pedestrian type impacts.
MR. JACKSON: What education, training, and background qualifies you to perform the duties that you just told us about as the director of biomechanics and human factors at ARCCA?
DR. RENTSCHLER: Well, I got my BS in mechanical engineering with a minor in biomedical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1995. I then went on to get my master's in bioengineering and biomechanics from the University of Pittsburgh in 2002. And then I got my PhD in bioengineering and biomechanics from the University of Pittsburgh in 2004.
MR. JACKSON: 2004. Four. Thank you. Are you a member of any professional associations associated with your field?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I'm a member of SAE, the Society of Automotive Engineers, as well as the American Society for Mechanical Engineers, ASME.
MR. JACKSON: Are you also a reviewer for an outfit called Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Biomechanical Engineering?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I have. I've done peer-reviewed articles for those journals before. Yes, sir.
MR. JACKSON: When you say peer-reviewed articles, you're the peer reviewer.
DR. RENTSCHLER: That's right. If you want to submit a scientific article to a journal, you'll write that manuscript and then submit it to the journal, and then they'll send it out to other experts or peers in that same field — probably three others normally — and then they'll review that transcript, send it back with any suggested revisions, and then usually the author will make changes, send it out again, and that's how it gets accepted. Usually it goes through several different iterations before a paper's actually published.
MR. JACKSON: Have you received any additional training following your PhD — formal training or otherwise — in the field of biomechanics?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I have. Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Describe some of that for us, please.
DR. RENTSCHLER: Throughout the years I've taken classes through the NTSB, National Transportation Safety Board, as well as SAE, as I said, Society of Automotive Engineers, and at different universities — Virginia Tech — different seminars and classes with respect to biomechanics.
MR. JACKSON: Is that normal — even for someone at your education level, a PhD — to take continuing education to stay up on issues in your field?
DR. RENTSCHLER: It is. You take continuing education and then also just working with your peers. And when you work in a certain company — for instance, at ARCCA — we don't do just litigation. We do research and development. We have an elite sports branch at ARCCA where we look at sports performance of athletes, how to help them perform better — whether you're a baseball player, volleyball player. So it's really the experience and the work that you do that also helps keep you up to date with technology and the different aspects of that field.
MR. JACKSON: Does some of that additional education include biomechanics of high impact injuries that was offered by the NTSB?
DR. RENTSCHLER: Yeah, that's correct. Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Methodology and techniques of crash data retrieval offered by IPM.
DR. RENTSCHLER: Correct. Yes.
MR. JACKSON: What is the IPM?
DR. RENTSCHLER: That's the Institute for Police Technology and Management. It's actually a school down in Jacksonville, Florida that offers basically vehicle crash reconstruction and biomechanical classes.
MR. JACKSON: What about human factors in traffic crash reconstruction? Also offered by the same outfit.
DR. RENTSCHLER: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you take a course in — I'm sorry — automobile safety and injury biomechanics — is this the one from Virginia Tech?
DR. RENTSCHLER: That's correct. Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did SAE offer a course in injuries, anatomy, biomechanics, and federal regulations?
DR. RENTSCHLER: Yes. That was in Detroit, I think. Where SAE is based.
MR. JACKSON: You took that seminar as well.
DR. RENTSCHLER: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: What about vehicle accident reconstruction methods offered by the SAE?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I've taken that class before. Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Linear momentum analysis offered by CAS.
DR. RENTSCHLER: That was — yes — in a class out in California.
MR. JACKSON: Motor vehicle accident reconstruction authored by SAE.
DR. RENTSCHLER: I've taken that class as well. Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Advanced Collision Investigations out of California law enforcement.
DR. RENTSCHLER: Yeah, I believe that was a two-week class I took. That's the introductory class that they give to the sheriff's department and police officers out in California.
MR. JACKSON: And what about the post-collision passenger vehicle inspection and seat belt analysis offered by CARS, C-A-R-S?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I've taken that as well. Yes, sir.
MR. JACKSON: Have you published in peer-reviewed articles and book chapters? You said you were a reviewer. Have you actually published yourself, along with your colleagues?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I have published, and that was mainly when I was in graduate school doing graduate work. I worked at the Human Engineering Research Lab. We helped people with disabilities. So we looked at people in wheelchairs — manual wheelchair users — looked at the forces acting on the arms, how to help reduce injuries — rotator cuff tears, carpal tunnel syndrome, things such as that. So I did publish primarily when I was in graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh.
MR. JACKSON: When you were in graduate school, approximately how many publications did you participate in — either yourself or with colleagues?
DR. RENTSCHLER: Oh, probably 10 or 12 papers, and then some abstracts, and I believe a book chapter as well.
MR. JACKSON: Have you been qualified in other courts to testify as an expert in the area of biomechanics and accident reconstruction?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I have. Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Approximately how many times?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I've testified throughout my career probably over 150 times in both state and federal courts throughout the country.
MR. JACKSON: I want to talk to you for a second, Dr. Rentschler, about how you began working on this particular case — the case that's before the bench. When were you initially retained in connection with this case?
DR. RENTSCHLER: We were initially retained — I believe it was for the first trial. It was — I believe — maybe it was the fall prior to that actual trial. That was last year.
MR. JACKSON: All right. When you were — by the way, initially — were you hired by the defense?
DR. RENTSCHLER: No, we were not.
MR. JACKSON: Were you hired by the Commonwealth?
DR. RENTSCHLER: We were not. No.
MR. JACKSON: Was that a separate agency that hired you?
DR. RENTSCHLER: It was. Yes.
MR. JACKSON: It wasn't an insurance company, was it?
DR. RENTSCHLER: It was not. No, sir.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. What were you initially asked to do by this separate entity?
DR. RENTSCHLER: Initially, we were asked — we're kind of constrained in what we were asked to do and to review — but we were asked to evaluate whether the injuries sustained by Mr. O'Keefe were consistent with being struck by the Lexus.
MR. JACKSON: And who at ARCCA was assigned on the team to undertake this commission?
DR. RENTSCHLER: There was myself, Dr. Dan Wolfe, and I believe Dr. Kline was another engineer who was involved.
MR. JACKSON: And did all three of you join in the analysis that ultimately ended up in a report that you authored — or the three of you authored together?
DR. RENTSCHLER: We did. Yes, sir.
MR. JACKSON: What materials did you review in furtherance of your initial consultation in this matter?
DR. RENTSCHLER: Obviously I looked at the medical records. We looked at photographs of the vehicles, information about the vehicles, photographs of the actual incident scene, various information pertaining to the Lexus itself.
MR. JACKSON: You know who Dr. Dan Wolfe is?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I do. Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Is that the other person — the Dan Wolfe — the Dr. Wolfe that you just mentioned?
DR. RENTSCHLER: That's correct. Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you and Dr. Wolfe look at basically the same set of information? You were provided the same set of information.
DR. RENTSCHLER: We did. Yes, we were provided a tranche of information that all three of us looked at. Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Can you explain the difference between your area of expertise and Dr. Wolfe's area of expertise? I want you to get into his analysis, just what area he covers. In other words, you're dealing with the Lexus and pedestrian. Correct.
DR. RENTSCHLER: Correct. Yes.
MR. JACKSON: What's the difference between the analysis that you undertook and the responsibilities of Dr. Wolfe?
DR. RENTSCHLER: So Dr. Wolfe really concentrated on looking at the vehicle itself and the damage to the vehicle, the damage to the tail light, which is really the only damage we have to that vehicle. And so his analysis pertained to evaluating the force associated with producing that damage — what's consistent with causing that type of fracture and damage to the tail light itself. Whereas my part of the investigation was really looking more at the injuries and looking at Mr. O'Keefe and his kinematics and his — any interaction between him and the vehicle and whether that would be consistent with his injuries as well as the damage that we see to the Lexus as evaluated by Dr. Wolfe.
MR. JACKSON: Did you ultimately issue a report — an initial report — summarizing your opinions and your conclusions following your analysis?
DR. RENTSCHLER: We did. Yes, sir.
MR. JACKSON: About when was that report issued?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I believe it was sometime in February.
MR. JACKSON: February of what year?
DR. RENTSCHLER: It would have been February of last year, 2024.
MR. JACKSON: 2024. Okay. Thank you. Were you able to provide an analysis given the information that you had? Were you able to provide an analysis for the biomechanical aspect of the analysis of the case?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I was. Yes, sir.
MR. JACKSON: All right. Did you review medical records and other materials?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I did. Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you make note of anything with regard to Mr. O'Keefe's injuries based on what you reviewed initially when you began your analysis?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I did. Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Can you describe what you noted in terms of Mr. O'Keefe's injuries?
DR. RENTSCHLER: There were really just two basically different areas of injury. There was injury to the head. There was a laceration on the rear — kind of right occipital region of the head — which resulted in fractures — an occipital skull fracture, which is the rear part of your skull — as well as basilar skull fractures that propagated up through the skull. And then there were injuries which were noted or diagnosed to be superficial abrasions along his right arm.
MR. JACKSON: What is a subscapular hemorrhage?
DR. RENTSCHLER: Subscapular is — yes — yeah. With respect to the head — is that yes, as it relates to the head. Yes. Well, so when we talk about "sub" — there's subarachnoid — there's pia hemorrhages — but basically they're hemorrhages. And subscapular is a hemorrhage under the scalp but above the skull. So subdural is within — on the surface of the brain — but subscapular means that it's a hematoma or blood or bleeding that occurs under the scalp but above the actual skull.
MR. JACKSON: Did you note subscapular hemorrhage in your analysis of Mr. O'Keefe's injuries?
DR. RENTSCHLER: There was. Yes. I believe there was extensive subscapular hemorrhaging.
MR. JACKSON: What about skull fractures?
DR. RENTSCHLER: There were, as I described, an occipital skull fracture in the back of the skull that then propagated forward through the calvarium, as well as the basal — or the base — of the skull.
MR. JACKSON: You mentioned subdural hemorrhage as one of the issues that you would look at normally. Did you note whether Mr. O'Keefe suffered from subdural hemorrhage?
DR. RENTSCHLER: He did. Yes, he had sustained a subdural hemorrhage as a result, and also subarachnoid hemorrhage.
MR. JACKSON: Correct.
DR. RENTSCHLER: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: What about bilateral orbital ecchymosis?
DR. RENTSCHLER: He did. Yes. Bruising along the eyes, basically.
MR. JACKSON: What does bilateral mean?
DR. RENTSCHLER: Both. Bilateral means left and right.
MR. JACKSON: Correct. Did you note a 1 cm, or approximately 1 cm, laceration to the upper right eyelid?
DR. RENTSCHLER: There was, yes — 1 cm.
MR. JACKSON: And so that's a little less than half an inch laceration right above the right eye. What about abrasions to the anterior and left aspect of the nose?
DR. RENTSCHLER: There were some abrasions on the nose, and then I believe a few lacerations as well. A laceration on the right anterior tongue.
MR. JACKSON: The tongue was lacerated.
DR. RENTSCHLER: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: You noted with regard to one of Mr. O'Keefe's extremities abrasions along that extremity. Superficial abrasions.
DR. RENTSCHLER: That's correct.
MR. JACKSON: Sir, describe which arm we're talking about and what part of the arm.
DR. RENTSCHLER: It was the right arm, and it was from the forearm up towards the top of the shoulder. And there were various abrasions — what were diagnosed as superficial abrasions — along that posterior aspect of the arm: the elbow, forearm, and the upper arm.
MR. JACKSON: When you undertake an analysis, do you use biomechanics and kinematics both to try to evaluate whether or not a specific set of injuries are consistent or inconsistent with a proposed set of facts?
DR. RENTSCHLER: Yeah, I mean, those are basic steps to look at how an injury occurs. First you have to identify the injury, and that's by looking at the medical records and determining what the diagnosed injuries are. And then you have to determine the kinematics and the kinetics associated with a certain event — so how did the person move? How was their body moved? Did they interact with anything? And how did that result in loading or force being applied to the body? Those are basic steps of a biomechanical injury causation analysis.
MR. JACKSON: How did you go about undertaking those steps in this particular case?
DR. RENTSCHLER: So in this particular case, we looked at how those injuries are actually produced or created. So occipital skull fracture — you need a sufficient force. You need a force of around maybe 1,400 or 1,600 lb applied at the back of the skull to actually cause a fracture like that. The abrasions — superficial abrasions — an abrasion is basically rubbing or scraping or friction that scrapes away the top part of your skin, the epidermis. You have the epidermis, the dermis, and then the hypodermis. An abrasion just gets into the top epidermis and doesn't get any farther. A laceration is an actual tearing or ripping of the skin, usually down past the epidermis into the dermis.
DR. RENTSCHLER: And so that takes either a blunt object or a sharp edge — depending on whether it's an incision or laceration — to actually produce that type of injury.
MR. JACKSON: Did you look at patterns of injuries on Mr. O'Keefe?
DR. RENTSCHLER: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you also — the other side of that handshake — did you also look at damage to the vehicle? Physical damage to the Lexus?
DR. RENTSCHLER: We did. Yes. Our goal — what we were tasked with — was to determine whether the injuries are consistent with the damage to the car. So clearly you look at how these injuries are created, what injury mechanism you need to produce them, and then you look at the damage to the car. Can you line up contact between where those injuries occurred and how they occurred with damage to the vehicle?
MR. JACKSON: What kind of materials did you review, in addition to — I'm guessing photographs?
DR. RENTSCHLER: Photographs. Yes. Autopsy photographs as well as photographs of the vehicle and the damage to the Lexus.
MR. JACKSON: What about medical records?
DR. RENTSCHLER: Hospital records, things of that nature. Absolutely. That really is the first step — looking at the injuries, finding what the injuries are, what the diagnosed injuries are — as well as it's important to determine what injuries don't exist, because that's also helpful in determining whether certain impacts may or may not have actually occurred.
MR. JACKSON: Did you receive a full file from the medical examiner's office in this case?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I did. Yes, sir.
MR. JACKSON: Did you also receive police reports, follow-up reports, witness statements, things of that nature in this case?
DR. RENTSCHLER: We did. Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you receive any data concerning the vehicle itself, contained either in police reports or follow-up reports or expert reports?
DR. RENTSCHLER: We did. Yes.
JUDGE CANNONE: Mr. Jackson, I was just going to ask you to slow down the cadence of your voice a little bit. It's late in the day.
MR. JACKSON: And I'm doing it again, aren't I? I'll slow down. I forgot where I left off, but let me ask you sort of openly — was there anything else that you considered and analyzed in at least building a database from which you would build an analysis?
DR. RENTSCHLER: Well, yeah. I mean, we review all the materials that are provided to look at all the injuries, to look at all aspects of the vehicle, damage to the vehicle, information about what the vehicle may have been doing, any other evidence that may help contribute to looking at what either caused the injuries or what may or may not have caused the damage to that vehicle.
MR. JACKSON: When you and your teammates undertook this analysis, did you even know who we were?
DR. RENTSCHLER: Initially, we did not. No. Initially I personally didn't know anything about the case, and we were asked not to do any research or to look up anything about it. We were given certain parameters, certain information, and that was it.
MR. JACKSON: Did you follow those instructions?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I did. Yes.
MR. JACKSON: The undertaking, the analysis that you did — was it in keeping with the accepted methodology or methodologies in your field of engineering?
DR. RENTSCHLER: It was. Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you ultimately reach some opinions and conclusions based on that initial investigation or analysis?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I did, and we did at ARCCA. Yes — myself, Dr. Wolfe, and Dr. Kline did.
MR. JACKSON: Did you reach any opinions or conclusions with regard to the force required to produce the occipital skull fracture that you noted — with Mr. O'Keefe's head being struck by the rear tail lamp of the subject Lexus?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I did. Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Tell me what those opinions and conclusions were.
DR. RENTSCHLER: Well, again, we determined by looking at research and tolerance values that it would take about 1,400 to 1,600 lb of force to cause an occipital skull fracture. Now, we were tasked with looking at — again — could that result from impact with the car. So one of the things we did is we took a head form, a head from a dummy basically, that's instrumented with accelerometers, and we dropped it onto a tail light cover to attain a speed of 15 mph. And so that would be comparable to the vehicle striking the head at 15 mph. And I concluded a few things from that. A — that the force wasn't sufficient, or the acceleration wasn't sufficient, to produce enough force to cause a skull fracture at 15 miles an hour.
DR. RENTSCHLER: And also, when you look at the position and configuration of the occupant, it really wasn't possible to get a skull fracture by hitting the tail light and not sustain any other significant fractures. For instance, where the taillight is positioned — to have an impact to the back of the head, you really couldn't have someone positioned in such a manner to strike just the head and not have subsequent concomitant injury to the neck or any other part of the body. So my findings with respect to the occipital skull fractures was that it likely did not occur as a result of contact specifically with the tail light cover on the rear passenger side of the Lexus.
MR. JACKSON: So as to the question of whether Mr. O'Keefe suffered the occipital skull fracture as a result of being hit by the tail lamp at 15 miles an hour — were you able to scientifically rule that out?
DR. RENTSCHLER: I was. Yes, sir.
MR. JACKSON: Was that to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty?
DR. RENTSCHLER: It was. Yes.
MR. JACKSON: Did you reach any opinions or conclusions regarding the abrasions on the right arm that you noted earlier on Mr. O'Keefe's body?
DR. RENTSCHLER: Yes. I believe my conclusions with respect to the abrasions are that they were inconsistent with contact to the tail light, and not only that those injuries are inconsistent, but you would expect additional injuries — likely fractures to the hand and/or the forearm depending on the actual speed of the vehicle.
MR. JACKSON: Other than the expectation that you would see fractures or other damage to the arm, what was the basis for your opinion that the linear abrasions would not result from impact with a non-damaged tail light traveling in reverse?
DR. RENTSCHLER: What you have to look at is the kinematics associated with that, and in order to get just superficial abrasions — that doesn't take a significant amount of force — but essentially, to have an arm contact the rear of the car... we weren't really given any theory of how the arm contacted the car. Initially we weren't privy to any theories or allegations of how this may occur. So just generally speaking, looking at the arm, how it would contact the car and subsequent movement and interaction with the light cover, my opinion was that the injuries would be inconsistent — or the injuries that Mr. O'Keefe sustained on his right arm and didn't sustain — would be inconsistent with actual interaction with the tail light.
MR. JACKSON: Were your opinions and conclusions, along with those of your colleagues, reduced to a report?
DR. RENTSCHLER: They were. Yes, sir.
MR. JACKSON: Was that report, to your knowledge, ultimately turned over to both the defense and the Commonwealth in this case?
DR. RENTSCHLER: To my knowledge it was. Yes, sir.
MR. JACKSON: I'm going to change gears for a second and bring us forward to the spring of 2024 — after February of 2024, moving into the start of 2025. Did the defense at some point reach out to ARCCA and contact you and Dr. Wolfe?
DR. RENTSCHLER: They did. Yes. That was back in 2024, after the spring. Correct. That's correct. Yes.
MR. JACKSON: At some point, did the defense engage you specifically to testify?
DR. RENTSCHLER: Yes.
MR. JACKSON: This year? Meaning this trial?
DR. RENTSCHLER: For this trial, yes. Correct.
MR. JACKSON: Were you asked to conduct further testing in furtherance of your potential testimony in this trial?
DR. RENTSCHLER: We were. Yes, sir.
MR. JACKSON: And were you provided additional materials from the defense in furtherance of your potential testimony and your testing?
DR. RENTSCHLER: We were, yes. We were provided additional material with respect to the theory of how this may have occurred and how Mr. O'Keefe may have sustained his injuries allegedly.
MR. JACKSON: Included in the materials that you were provided in anticipation of your testimony in this case, in this trial — were you provided anything from a company called Aperture?
DR. RENTSCHLER: We were. Yes.
MR. JACKSON: What were you provided from Aperture?
DR. RENTSCHLER: We were provided a written report from Aperture, a PowerPoint presentation — about 140 some pages — from Aperture, and then file material, I believe, of what was reviewed and the results of some testing that Aperture had conducted with respect to this case.
MR. JACKSON: Was it your understanding that the Aperture PowerPoint was authored by a particular individual?
PARENTHETICAL: [sidebar]
PARENTHETICAL: [unclear]
COURT OFFICER: I'm sorry.
JUDGE CANNONE: So jurors, that was about scheduling. We picked up a lot of time today. I think it was because we did spend less time at sidebar and less time doing things outside your presence. So we're back on track, and we're going to let you go for today. We're expecting a full day tomorrow. I can tell you the lawyers tell me that we're definitely winding down. Okay, so please — — those same three cautions. Do not discuss this case with anyone. Don't do any independent research or investigation into this case. If you happen to see, hear or read anything about this case, please disregard it and let us know. And please continue to be very careful with your social media use. So we'll see you ready to start at 9:00.
DR. RENTSCHLER: Yes, sir.
MR. JACKSON: Who authored that PowerPoint, as far as you knew?
DR. RENTSCHLER: As far as I'm aware, it was Dr. Judson Welcher.
MR. JACKSON: Your honor, may we approach briefly?
JUDGE CANNONE: Okay.
COURT OFFICER: Be seated. You're all set, Dr.
JUDGE CANNONE: So we'll see you tomorrow morning as well. Thank you. All right. So, first of all — anybody object if I give Ms. McLaughlin back the paperwork on the state of Rhode Island versus Michael Patino transcript or whatever she was giving me? Any objection to that? Thank you. All right. So, Mr. Jackson, for purposes of your edits — the text will be removed from slides 5, 6, 8, 9, 23. The word "measurements," I think, is perhaps the only word there. 24, 31, 32, 33, 34, 46, 47, 54, 55, 56, 58, 66, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74, and 75. And 76 separately, pursuant to what will be an upcoming evidentiary ruling on where the foundation has been made.
JUDGE CANNONE: If you could separately have a way to exclude — if it becomes appropriate based on whatever ruling based on the foundation that you're going to attempt to put in — slides 9 to 23. Now, as I said to you at sidebar, once you do this, or if you talk to the Commonwealth, if there's no objection to some of those numbered slides that I said needed to be edited, if the Commonwealth agrees that they come in, you can go ahead and put them in because I would allow them if it's by agreement.
MR. JACKSON: Thank you.
JUDGE CANNONE: Okay. All right. So — do you expect that we will finish with Dr. Rentschler tomorrow?
MR. JACKSON: I do, your honor.
JUDGE CANNONE: Okay. Mr. Brennan.
MR. BRENNAN: I don't think I'll be as long as I was when — okay. Depending on how it goes. If he has an hour and a half, I expect I'll probably be about an hour, maybe an hour and ten minutes.
JUDGE CANNONE: Okay. All right. And then we'll figure out where we are Thursday. It seems that the case may be ready to go to the jury Friday, maybe Monday at the latest. But that's Monday. Does that seem like a fair estimate to you, Mr. Brennan?
MR. BRENNAN: I think we'll be ready Friday.
JUDGE CANNONE: Okay. All right. So we'll see. Okay. All right. Thank you. We'll see everybody tomorrow morning.
MR. JACKSON: Yes. Should I have Dr. Welcher tomorrow or wait?
JUDGE CANNONE: Tomorrow is Wednesday already. Can we, Mr. Jackson — can we re-evaluate that mid-morning or at the lunch break and see where we are, whether we need Dr. Welcher here in the afternoon?
MR. JACKSON: Of course.
JUDGE CANNONE: Okay. All right. We'll do that. I think — Mr. Jackson?
MR. JACKSON: Yes, your honor. With regard to various exhibits that your honor said would be admitted based upon the issue that we had with regard to exhibit 88 — — your honor said you would —
JUDGE CANNONE: Yes, we'll put those into evidence. Thank you very much.
MR. JACKSON: Okay. That was the only pressing for today.
JUDGE CANNONE: Yeah, that I said yesterday they'd come in. They're coming in. Okay. So those will be in evidence. Mr. Brennan, you were on notice yesterday that I was letting those in. Okay. All right. We're all set. We'll see you tomorrow. Goodbye.