An orthopaedic surgeon has taken to the stand to give his view on Johnny Depp's severed finger, contradicting Amber Heard's description of the cause of the injury.
In the final week of the defamation trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, Dr Robert Gilbert has testified on how Depp could have sustained the finger injury which saw the top of his finger severed.
Dr Gilbert also stated it was 'highly unlikely' the injury was sustained in the way Heard previously described.
Dr Gilbert said: "So a vodka bottle which is a hard object would have crushed the tip of the finger resulting in the [...] fracture.
Advert
"And in addition, as the vodka bottle broke, the glass would have lacerated the finger resulting in the soft tissue loss that was also seen with this injury."
He added that Heard's description of how the injury was ascertained was 'highly unlikely'.
Dr Gilbert explained Heard's recollection of how the injury came about was unlikely because of two reasons.
Advert
The first, because 'in general, when an injury is caused by punching against a wall or hard object, it is extremely rare to see an injury to the tips of the fingers, which is seen with Mr Depp's injury'.
He stated: "Generally you're holding something with a fist, and that in general leads to injuries most commonly of the knuckle [...] or [...] boxer's fractures. The second most common after those would be injuries to these, [the joints between the knuckles and finger tips] but as you can see, if you're holding something and hitting against something, it's very unlikely that the tips of the fingers will be injured.
"In addition, just taking into account the radiographs and pictures of the injury, I would not believe that solely a blunt force against a wall would result in the soft tissue loss."
In response to Dr Gilbert's testimony, one of Heard's legal team argued Heard had never given a detailed account about how Depp had sustained the injury.
Advert
However, the orthopaedic stated he had seen a deposition which described 'that potentially it [the finger] was lost when he [Depp] was punching against a wall with a phone'.
On 17 March, Dr Gilbert previously gave a deposition which detailed an alleged theory that while there was no way to tell which direction the bottle came from that Heard threw a bottle 'on a downward trajectory' at Depp and that the glass exploded but there was 'no glass in the wound' or 'anywhere on the rest of his hand'.
Dr Gilbert's theory was that Depp's hand 'likely [...] could have moved' upon the force of the bottle hitting his hand.
"But I was not there and I don't have a videotape of the injuries," Dr Gilbert said.
Advert
Despite giving his expert opinion, Dr Gilbert admitted that he could not definitively state how the injury occurred.
If you have a story you want to tell, send it to UNILAD via [email protected]
Topics: Johnny Depp, Amber Heard, US News
Poppy Bilderbeck