He was leaving. He was leaving. If you didn’t do something at that very minute, the doctor Conrad Murray I could regret it. The doctor had woken up that day with an order from his boss, Michael Jackson, although it had both an imperative and a request at the same time. that would supply you propofol, a powerful anesthetic used in surgeries. Short lasting (between 30 to 60 minutes of effect), but strong. Against his opinion – which had been presented to him more than once – Murray injected Jackson with 25 milligrams of porpofol at 10:40 a.m. on June 25, 2009.. And the setting was the rented mansion of Holmby Hillsin Los Angeles.
Ten minutes later, Murray checked on Jackson in his room, but he was not breathing. There he understood that a difficult day was coming if he didn’t react. He began resuscitation maneuvers and, in the process, injected her with 0.2 milligrams of Anexate, a medication that counteracts the effects of sedatives. Surely Murray prayed to everything he believed and did not believe, so that everything he was doing at that moment would work and his famous patient would come to his senses. To the life. Surely he remembered his classes at Meharry Medical Collegein Nashville, Tennessee, the first medical school for African Americans, and reviewed his internship at the Mayo Clinic. But surely in the solemn classrooms they never talked to him about how to revive a man when he is more than a man. A legend.
The problem is that Jackson already came with a cocktail of drugs. At that time, the man of Billie Jean He was having very bad nights, he was having trouble sleeping, and he asked Murray to give him propofol so he could rest. At 50 years old, he seemed to weigh more each day than the previous. The doctor tried to convince him not to continue doing it, but it was useless. Jackson wanted to sleep at all costs.
Before going to sleep, Murray injected him intravenously with propofol combined with xylocaine., The specialty of the house. Then, at 1:30 am, and as he still couldn’t fall asleep, Jackson asked him to do it again, but the doctor opted to give him pills. As revealed by the subsequent investigation, at that time the singer consumed 10 mg of Valium. Then came more: at 2 a.m., he took Ativan, an anti-anxiety medication; At 3, he took a sedative called Versed. And since he still couldn’t sleep, between 5:30 and 7:30, he repeated the doses of Ativan and Versed.
Murray must have remembered all that drug taking when he was trying to get Jackson back. In those anxious minutes, chaos took over the house. The doctor ran through the halls of the mansion and shouted for help from Michael Amir Williams, Jackson’s bodyguard, and Michael Joseph “Prince”, 12 years old, the singer’s eldest son. They were not nurses or paramedics or people qualified in medicine, so there was little they could do. The situation was getting out of hand. Only at 12:22, almost an hour and a half after the last injection of propofol, did the doctor call the number that could perform magic and save everything, 911. But at that point, it was already a drowning slap. Jackson was leaving.
The ambulance arrived quickly, it only took 9 minutes to 100 North Carolwood Drive. The rescue personnel found Michael Jackson, yes to Michael Jackson, inert, emaciated, and without vital signs in his room. After some first aid maneuvers, they decided to transfer him, at 1:14 pm, to the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where they continued to apply resuscitation maneuvers. Everything was useless. There was nothing to do. At 2:26 p.m. on June 25, 2009, the doctors Michael Jackson officially declared dead.
Just 18 minutes later, and thanks to a medical source they had at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, the TMZ portal -specialized in shows- announced the news. Michael Jackson had died at the age of 50. It was incredible. In Chile it was 5:44 p.m. People were getting ready to drink eleven. It was cold. More than one person waited impatiently in front of the television for the gas cylinder for the stove to arrive. The number one concern was a disease known as “swine fever”, or rather influenza A (H1N1), and the “Red” – with Marcelo Bielsa on the bench – had just defeated Bolivia 4-0 in the qualifiers to the 2010 South Africa World Cup.
The media began a live broadcast only focused on the shocking news, as usually happens with events that generate resonance. Just as with the death of John Kennedyin 1963, or Augusto Pinochet, just three years earlier. On Channel 13, Iván Valenzuela highlighted the loyalty of the “King of Pop” fans who were beginning to gather outside the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, despite “his grotesque existence in recent years.” He was not without reason in any case, since the singer, in fits and starts, had announced a great comeback tour in an attempt to honor his history, and in the process, improve his ailing economic situation. Anyway, in the first moments, there was speculation about the cause of the artist’s death. These would only become clear with the autopsy.
And the autopsy confirmed that “Jacko”’s death was due to cardiac arrest, as a result of a drug overdose. For Justice, the pop star’s death was considered a homicide and in 2011, Murray was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, sentenced to four years in prison, and his licenses to practice medicine were revoked. He served two years and was released on parole on October 28, 2013.
Shortly after the star’s death, she was his first wife, Lisa Marie Presley the daughter of the “King of Rock”, who posted a heartfelt reflection on her MySpace site (a classic from the 2000s): “He knew it. Years ago Michael and I were having a deep conversation about life in general. I can’t remember exactly what, but I must have been wondering about the circumstances of my father’s death. At one point, he paused, looked at me intently, and said with almost calm assurance, ‘I’m afraid I’m going to end up like him, the way he did’”.
