L.A. Now
Michael Jackson's heart beat briefly when he was taken from his rented Holmby Hills mansion to UCLA Medical Center, according to an attorney for the pop star's father, Joe Jackson.
In an interview with CNN, attorney Brian Oxman claims that Jackson might have been saved had paramedics and doctors gotten to him sooner.
"The bottom line is, had [paramedics] gotten there earlier and had they been called right away, chances are he could have been revived," Oxman told CNN.
It's unclear how Joe Jackson's camp obtained the information about Michael Jackson's heart or whether earlier medical intervention would have saved him.
The entertainer had high levels of the powerful anesthetic propofol in his system when he died, according to the L.A. County coroner's office.
Jackson's doctor, Conrad Murray, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter in connection with Jackson's death. He has pleaded not guilty and maintains that he did nothing wrong.
Murray told investigators that Jackson, 50, was a chronic insomniac who had depended for years on propofol -- a white liquid that the singer called "milk" -- to sleep, according to police affidavits filed in court.
But an anesthesiologist consulted by the coroner's office wrote in the report that she knew of "no reports of its use for insomnia relief".
-- Shelby Grad
Photo: Michael Jackson and his father, Joe, before the pop star's death. L.A. Times file photo
Los Angeles Times
