Johnny Depp was now playing onstage, along with Gibby Haynes, when an unnamed friend saw frusciante invite River into the tiny
men’s room to share a speedball he had with him. River quickly snorted the mixture of cocaine and heroin and almost immediately
felt sick.
“What the f-ck is this *beep* he shouted. Soon, he vomited into the sink and could not stop shaking. To calm himself down, the
experienced heroin addict knows to take a valium. River took the two he was handed and another a friend gave him. He just
swallowed them whole. FRUSCIANTE RATHER QUICKLY LEFT THE RESTROOM. Reported witnesses. After water was splashed
on his face to try to make him feel better, River exited the restroom.
It was a very short distance to his booth, only a few steps away, yet he was shaking and very unsteady as he walked back to the table
where his brother, sister and girlfriend were waiting. Witnesses recalled that once seated, River said “I dont feel right. Something is
f-cking wrong”. Nobody paid attention to these remarks or to him.
“A moment later he vomited on himself and on the table”. recalls a friend. Then he passed out and almost slipped underneath the table.
Joaquin grabbed him and straightened him up and he regained consciousness. At this time River could have been saved if anyone called
911 or simply driven him to the emergency room. Cedar Sinai Hospital is only a mile away. However, River Phoenix was the actor,
the older brother, the boyfriend, the provider; moreover, he had been this way a few times before, so there seemed no reason to do such
a rash and public thing. They all stayed put. At 12:55, River’s condition worsened. ” I need air. Would someone take me outside?”
He grabbed Samantha’s hand and again asked to be taken outside. Because of all the commotion, the bouncer came over to the table
and concurred, “You better get him outside”
Rain and Joaquin helped River up and took him past the stage and out the “back door” onto Sunset Boulevard; Samantha followed them.
It had been reported that as they walked passed the stage River said to Johnny Depp “Hey Dude, I’m gonna die” . This however is
not true. With his worsening condition, he was too sick to do or say anything much. It was now 1:00 am. Celebrity photographer Ron
Davis was approaching the Viper Room, when the doors came crashing open and three people came out. River Phoenix slammed really
hard, face first onto the the dirty concrete sidewalk
“I recognized immediately who he was, as this girl (Rain) turned him over”. Recalled Davis. “Then he went into these violent seizures.
His whole body was enveloped by the seizures. He didnt look like a human being. He did not look like he was present. It was just his
body present. No one was doing anything. They were all just standing there like deer in the headlights. One girl, the blond (Samantha),
was just leaning up against the wall, kind of banging her head. The other one, the brunette (Rain) was just sitting on him. No one would
do anything”
The doorman came out, looked at Joaquin and ordered, “Do something, call 911”. The response was “He’s fine, he’s fine”. “Then” Davis
remembers, “the manager of Turnes Liquor Store came out, and he too, just stood there looking. I shouted to the manager to call
911. But he just stood there. He finally went back into his store to make the 911 call. His brother, i guess went to the outside payphone
for an ambulance.” At that moment “Christina Applegate walked out, looked down at him, then walked to the parking lot and began
to mimic what was happening. River Didn’t say anything. Not a word as he lay there”. Rain began rubbing his stomach to comfort him, but
his life was now ebbing away.
“After about eight minutes of seizures, his arms flapping, his knuckles hitting the sidewalk, his head banging back and forth, he became still.
Perfectly still” Ron Davis asserts.
(I’m sure you guys have heard the 911 calll or at least read the transcripts, so I won’t type that out)
It was 1:10 in the morning when the local paramedics got the call that there was someone who was very sick on the sidewalk outside the Viper
Room. They immediately headed to the Viper room, that was just a couple minutes away. The fire engine came first to the scene and then the
ambulance arrived a short time later. When the paramedics arrived they found River laying on the sidewalk outside the club near the gutter and
near some newspaper vending machines. He was in full respiratory arrest. “We found him pulseless and not breathing” recalled Captain Ribar.
“CPR was immediately started, along with airway breathing and circulation. Then we went into advances life support”.
“Joaquin said that River was having seizures because he was diabetic. We always ask bystanders if they know any background information
about the patient” One paramedic was heard saying ” Son, I need to know the truth, because we can use the antidotes if its drugs”
“No! He’s a diabetic,’ was the reply,” reported Ron Davis, a bit surprised at hearing that response, especially after what he just witnessed.
“Other’s at the scene talked about drugs, so we injected River’s heart with a medication that reverses the effects of narcotics, called
Narcan and began chest compressions. However, his heart was in a flatline, clinically dead” attested Captain Ribar. ” We stabilized him the
best we could and prepared him for transportation (by the soon-arriving ambulance)”
“It was the classic cocaine overreaction; it just nails some people and stops the heart. One person whom i did not know (Flea) wanted to go
along in the back of the ambulance”, which had now arrived. We can do that, but we could only allow him to ride in the front seat” said Ribar.
They all left at 1:31 AM for the short ride to the emergency room at Cedar-Sinai, just blocks away. ” I didn’t know who River was, but one of the
other paremedics did. I could hear him saying “Come on River, you can make it.“
The ambulance ride only took three minutes. Attendees at the emergency room immediately began to do all they could to restore the life to
River’s now still body. they opened up his chest to massage his heart directly. They continued breathing for him with a respirator and connected
more fluid catheters to his body. Nevertheless, River was clinically dead and remained flatlined. After sixteen minutes of frantic work, Dr Paul
Silka pronounced River Jude Phoenix dead at 1:51in the morning. Surgeons even tried inserting a pacemaker to stimulate his heart but nothing
worked. Samantha asked to go see his body. The emergency room was in sheer chaos the entire night. People kept on asking to see River and
medical staff would take them into a briefing room and tell them their friend had died.
