14 DAY TRIAL // Iconic Jimi Hendrix did not die after chocking on his own vomit following an overdose, the doctor who answered the emergency call and tried to revive the star many years ago, on the night of his death, is now telling the media. Hendrix was killed as a gang who had broken into his apartment force-fed him with wine and drugs, John Bannister says, as cited by News.com.
Mystery has continued to surround the death of the 27-year-old star ever since September 18, 1970. The most commonly circulated story is that his manager and roadie Mike Jeffery might have had a hand in this, hiring a gang of thugs to kill Hendrix to prevent him from changing management, as he was planning to do. Now, Bannister, who was on-call the morning the ambulance brought Hendrix in, is saying that the amount of pills and wine found in both his stomach and all over his body would certainly indicate foul play.
Since fans might be wondering why Bannister waited for 39 years to come out with his side of the story, suffice it to say that it’s included in a new book put out by another of Hendrix’s roadies, James “Tappy” Wright, called “Rock Roadie.” “The amount of wine that was over him was just extraordinary. Not only was it saturated right through his hair and shirt but his lungs and stomach were absolutely full of wine. I have never seen so much wine. We had a sucker that you put down into his trachea, the entrance to his lungs and to the whole of the back of his throat.” Bannister tells the Australian media.
The sheer amount of wine and drugs pumped out of Hendrix’s stomach would be enough to substantiate the murder theory, the former doctor adds. As per his own words, he personally believes the star was murdered by a gang of thugs who broke into the apartment he was staying in with his girlfriend, ice-skating instructor Monika Dannemann, for reasons unknown. Dannemann, who committed suicide in the ‘90s, always claimed Hendrix was alive when the ambulance arrived, a claim authorities repeatedly denied.
“We kept sucking and it kept surging and surging. He had already vomited up masses of red wine and I would have thought there was half a bottle of wine in his hair. He had really drowned in a massive amount of red wine. When you are in casualty, one always tries very hard to resuscitate people. There’s always a hope. We worked very hard for about half an hour but there was no response at all. It really was an exercise in futility. Somebody said to me, ‘You know who that was? That was Jimi Hendrix’ and of course I said, ‘Who’s Jimi Hendrix?’” the former doctor reveals about trying to bring the 27-year-old star back to life again.