By now you have all probably heard that on Thursday two pop stars lost their lives. Farrah Fawcett lost her three year battle with cancer Thursday morning and Michael Jackson died Thursday afternoon of an apparent heart attack.
One of my readers asked if I would be posting about Michael Jackson and, at the time, I didn’t think I would be. Communication FUNdamentals is mostly about humor and communication skills. Other than a few media stories in recent years, I haven’t really followed Mr. Jackson’s life so I wasn’t going to comment. However, shortly after his death, there appeared to be some conflicting communication about the cause of his death coming from the transcripts of the 911 tape. It appeared that more was revealed by what was not said and not done.
I heard the 911 tape and was suprised at what it revealed. I have no medical training at all so, at first, I felt I may not be able to properly discern anything from the tapes. But a medical expert on the Sean Hannity Show expressed the same concerns and added one more piece of medical information that further shocked me.
The first thing that struck me about the tape was how polite the caller was taking the time to call the 911 operator "sir" often as if it was his nature. You could tell he was nervous and not sure what to say because he repeated himself and the 911 operator several times. Another thing that struck me odd was that this very polite unidentified man didn’t identify Mr. Jackson, but just called him "a gentleman here." Since he did know his age when asked (without having to ask the doctor for that information), it seemed to me that he was told not to identify him by name due to his fame.
The most distressing thing to me was when the 911 operator was told that there was already a doctor on the scene! I was wondering why on earth that doctor wasn’t on the phone with 911 instead of this poor man. I thought it would certainly speed treatment along to have the 911 operator briefed by a medical doctor who was with the patient at the time. In fact, we find in the next few lines of the transcript/audio that the doctor was the ONLY one with Mr. Jackson when it happened. The medical expert on the show said that, if it were his patient, he personally would be on the phone with 911 instead of giving that job to someone else.
The caller said that Mr. Jackson was on the bed and that the doctor had already tried CPR and was "trying to pump him." This sounds to me as if the doctor was currently performing CPR on the bed. The medical expert on the show pointed out something that I had forgotten from my one and only CPR training. You’re supposed to do CPR on the FLOOR!
Apparently the initial report on the cause of death didn’t show any heart disease that would be consistent with a heart attack so they are deferring the cause of death until more tests can be done. The communication from the 911 tape suggests negligence on the part of the attending personal physician. Some reports say that Mr. Jackson had allegedly been receiving regular injections of very strong pain killers which might have caused a heart attack. How very sad.
Farrah Fawcett was only 62 and had been fighting cancer for three years. Michael Jackson was only 50 years old. My prayers go out to their families and to this doctor as well.
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Communication FUNdamentals