As John Travolta and Kelly Preston await the arrival of their son, they are faced with new claims related to their son Jett’s death in the Bahamas last year.
Former Nassau paramedic Tarino Lightbourne, who treated John Travolta’s son the night he died, claims Jett was dead hours before he arrived at the scene, the UK’s Daily Mail reported.
Lightbourne also claims he was ordered to take Jett’s body to a nearby private plane rather than a local hospital, which was 15 minutes away.
Following the death, John Travolta claimed he was the victim of a US$25 million ($27 million) extortion attempt by Lightbourne.
Travolta claimed he was asked to pay Lightbourne US$25 million for the return of an indemnity form signed by the star, which Lightbourne says proved Travolta had refused to send his son to the local hospital.
Lightbourne was charged and a five-week trial took place in Nassau last year. A retrial was then ordered following details of the case being reported prematurely.
However, before the retrial could take place, Travolta surprisingly dropped the case which had cost him millions of dollars in legal fees.
In the Daily Mail interview, Lightbourne said when he arrived at the scene Jett was lying naked on the bathroom floor covered in a towel. He said Jett had a gashed head and two people were giving him a heart massage. The paramedic said local doctor Romeo Fernandez and his wife Emma, a nurse who ran a local clinic, were at the scene.
“The doctor said he had suffered a seizure and hit his head when he fell. I asked how long ago and he said ‘a few minutes’,” Lightbourne said.
“The boy’s eyes were fixed and dilated, I noticed dry blood stains around both his ears and nostrils and the sides of his mouth … and the body was already in a state of rigor mortis. That usually starts about three hours after death.
“With my back turned to the other people in the room, I whispered to the doctor: ‘This boy is dead. Why don’t you call it [pronounce death]?’ Dr Fernandez said: ‘I know — just continue with CPR’.’
Lightbourne said that as a paramedic he was forced to follow the instructions of any doctor present and continued performing CPR. He claims he then heard one of the men present say: “Gentlemen, do we have an agreement? We can make a lot of money out of this. Everybody remain quiet and we can make a lot of money.”
He said he was then told that he could “retire” by going along with the “charade” in the room.
Lightbourne says he felt everything about the events that took place were “fast tracked”. “You have to ask yourself why,” he said.
