I didn’t want to believe the story on the New York Post’s website the night of March 17, 2009 when they reported that Tony award winning actress and film star, Natasha Richardson, 45, was brain dead and was on life support at New York’s Lenox Hill Hospital; the result of a brain injury she sustained during a skiing accident while on vacation with family the day before in Quebec.
I had a couple good reasons not to trust the story in the Post.
For starters, the newspaper was the only media outlet to report the tragedy when no one else at the time had confirmation.
The other reason why I refused to accept what eventually became the truth was not only because of how unexpectedly sudden the tragedy had happened. It was because I never saw Natasha Richardson as a movie star, at least not in the sense that she made any noteworthy blockbusters or was always on the radar of the tabloid entertainment press stirring up senseless controversy.
Looking over Richardson’s filmography, I had only seen her in one movie, the little seen World War II drama and box office failure, “Fat Man and Little Boy” (1989), which starred Paul Newman and Dwight Schulz; the star of NBC’s “The A-Team” (1983-1987).
The role was a minor one for the Tony award winning actress who was 25 at the time in which she played the doomed mistress of Schulz’s J. Robert Oppenheimer; the architect behind the building of the atomic bombs eventually dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima that brought about the end of World War II in 1945.
Looking over her celebrity photos on the internet sometimes posing with her husband/actor Liam Neeson (the two starred together in the 1994 film, “Nell”, and married soon after), I saw Richardson more as a beautiful, elegant, happy, vibrant working mother of two boys who not only donated time to such notable charities as the American Foundation for AIDS Research (her father director Tony Richardson died in 1991 from the disease), but also put her family and kids first before work.
“I want my sons to be my top priority,” Richardson was once quoted saying in People.
Those celebrity photos as well as her work on the stage and screen are now images frozen in time.
What makes her death most upsetting is how it could have been avoided to begin with. The first reports said the actress was talking and joking saying she felt fine after taking a fall during a skiing lesson and refused medical treatment when paramedics were called in the first time. The situation, however, grew worse within the time she started having headaches. Suddenly, the idea of dying from what didn’t seem like a nasty fall but what is now, according to the autopsy done by the New York medical exam two-and-a-half-hour injuries caused by a blunt impact to the head sounds too much like a cruel unfunny joke.
My first reaction upon hearing her life threatening injury, given how people in this country want cheap nationalized health care the way Canada and other countries do is I have to wonder if her skiing accident had happened here in the states, would she have stood a chance.
In a USA Today article, Tarek Razek, director of trauma services for the McGill University Health Centre which represents six of Montreal’s hospitals in Quebec, was quoted saying the drive from the Mont Tremblant ski resort where Richardson was staying at is two-and-a-half hours from the nearest hospital.
“It’s impossible for me to comment specifically about her case, but what I could say is…driving to Mon Tremblant from the city (Montreal) is a two and a half hour trip, and the closest trauma center is in the city,” Rezak said. “Our system isn’t set up for traumas and doesn’t match what’s available in other Canadian cities, let alone the States…and many other developed countries.”
Centre Hospitalier Laurentien in Ste-Agathe, the first treatment center Richardson was taken to does not specialize in head traumas, Rezak said. Moreover, Quebec has no medical helicopter system unlike the United States.
“Not being airlifted directly to a trauma center could have cost Richardson crucial moments,” Razek said. “A helicopter is obviously the fastest way to get from Point A to Point B.”
Then there is the question, despite my refusing to believe that helmets prevent brain injuries much the way I don’t believe seat belts in cars save lives in auto accidents, why wearing a helmet has never been made a mandatory requirement whether you are a beginner or an experienced skier.
According to an unnamed staff member at Mont Tremblant, Richardson was offered a protective helmet during her ski lesson but declined.
“We are heartbroken that we didn’t do more to persuade her to wear one. A helmet would have cost her just ten dollars (Canadian),” the unnamed staff member told the British newspaper, The Sun. “Every skier is encouraged to wear a helmet, especially beginners like Natasha. But it is not legally enforced, and they can always refuse.”
The issue of what could have been done to save her is probably not what is on the minds of Richardson’s prominent acting family of both the stage and screen who include her sister, Joely Richardson, and their mother, Oscar winning actress Vanessa Redgrave, right now. They are not mourning the loss of a star but a daughter, sister, and a beloved and devoted wife of two boys.
Their personal loss and ours is like a nightmare. You wake up only to find out there is still no happy ending. It is just so…heartbreaking.
©3/22/09
I had a couple good reasons not to trust the story in the Post.
For starters, the newspaper was the only media outlet to report the tragedy when no one else at the time had confirmation.
The other reason why I refused to accept what eventually became the truth was not only because of how unexpectedly sudden the tragedy had happened. It was because I never saw Natasha Richardson as a movie star, at least not in the sense that she made any noteworthy blockbusters or was always on the radar of the tabloid entertainment press stirring up senseless controversy.
Looking over Richardson’s filmography, I had only seen her in one movie, the little seen World War II drama and box office failure, “Fat Man and Little Boy” (1989), which starred Paul Newman and Dwight Schulz; the star of NBC’s “The A-Team” (1983-1987).
The role was a minor one for the Tony award winning actress who was 25 at the time in which she played the doomed mistress of Schulz’s J. Robert Oppenheimer; the architect behind the building of the atomic bombs eventually dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima that brought about the end of World War II in 1945.
Looking over her celebrity photos on the internet sometimes posing with her husband/actor Liam Neeson (the two starred together in the 1994 film, “Nell”, and married soon after), I saw Richardson more as a beautiful, elegant, happy, vibrant working mother of two boys who not only donated time to such notable charities as the American Foundation for AIDS Research (her father director Tony Richardson died in 1991 from the disease), but also put her family and kids first before work.
“I want my sons to be my top priority,” Richardson was once quoted saying in People.
Those celebrity photos as well as her work on the stage and screen are now images frozen in time.
What makes her death most upsetting is how it could have been avoided to begin with. The first reports said the actress was talking and joking saying she felt fine after taking a fall during a skiing lesson and refused medical treatment when paramedics were called in the first time. The situation, however, grew worse within the time she started having headaches. Suddenly, the idea of dying from what didn’t seem like a nasty fall but what is now, according to the autopsy done by the New York medical exam two-and-a-half-hour injuries caused by a blunt impact to the head sounds too much like a cruel unfunny joke.
My first reaction upon hearing her life threatening injury, given how people in this country want cheap nationalized health care the way Canada and other countries do is I have to wonder if her skiing accident had happened here in the states, would she have stood a chance.
In a USA Today article, Tarek Razek, director of trauma services for the McGill University Health Centre which represents six of Montreal’s hospitals in Quebec, was quoted saying the drive from the Mont Tremblant ski resort where Richardson was staying at is two-and-a-half hours from the nearest hospital.
“It’s impossible for me to comment specifically about her case, but what I could say is…driving to Mon Tremblant from the city (Montreal) is a two and a half hour trip, and the closest trauma center is in the city,” Rezak said. “Our system isn’t set up for traumas and doesn’t match what’s available in other Canadian cities, let alone the States…and many other developed countries.”
Centre Hospitalier Laurentien in Ste-Agathe, the first treatment center Richardson was taken to does not specialize in head traumas, Rezak said. Moreover, Quebec has no medical helicopter system unlike the United States.
“Not being airlifted directly to a trauma center could have cost Richardson crucial moments,” Razek said. “A helicopter is obviously the fastest way to get from Point A to Point B.”
Then there is the question, despite my refusing to believe that helmets prevent brain injuries much the way I don’t believe seat belts in cars save lives in auto accidents, why wearing a helmet has never been made a mandatory requirement whether you are a beginner or an experienced skier.
According to an unnamed staff member at Mont Tremblant, Richardson was offered a protective helmet during her ski lesson but declined.
“We are heartbroken that we didn’t do more to persuade her to wear one. A helmet would have cost her just ten dollars (Canadian),” the unnamed staff member told the British newspaper, The Sun. “Every skier is encouraged to wear a helmet, especially beginners like Natasha. But it is not legally enforced, and they can always refuse.”
The issue of what could have been done to save her is probably not what is on the minds of Richardson’s prominent acting family of both the stage and screen who include her sister, Joely Richardson, and their mother, Oscar winning actress Vanessa Redgrave, right now. They are not mourning the loss of a star but a daughter, sister, and a beloved and devoted wife of two boys.
Their personal loss and ours is like a nightmare. You wake up only to find out there is still no happy ending. It is just so…heartbreaking.
©3/22/09
