Until now, not much has been known about what happened aboard Prince private jet the night it was forced to make a medical emergency landing in Illinois late on the night of April 15.
That was less than a week before he died from what the Midwest Medical Examiner's office ruled an overdose of the painkiller fentanyl. At the time, the singer's publicist dismissed the incident as having been caused by the flu.
But singer and Prince protégée Judith Hill has come forward with a firsthand account of what happened on the singer's private jet that night on the way back from Atlanta to Minneapolis. Hill, a Grammy-winning singer, had spent the last two years performing with him and had become part of his inner circle.
She told the New York Times that the music icon was in the middle of a conversation with her when his eyes fixed and then he lost consciousness. “Thankfully, I happened to be looking into his face,” she told the newspaper. Otherwise, she might have assumed he was dozing.
Hill says she summoned Prince's friend and assistant Kirk Johnson from the front of the plane and together, they tried but failed to wake him. They alerted the pilot, who contacted air traffic controllers in Chicago at 1:12 a.m. CT to report they had an unresponsive man on board. “We knew it was only a matter of time; we had to get down,” Ms. Hill recalled. “We didn’t have anything on the plane to help him.”
At 1:17 a.m., the chartered 1988 Dassault Falcon 900 landed in Moline, Ill., where it was met by an ambulance. Johnson helped paramedics load the singer in the vehicle, where he received a shot of the opioid-reversing drug Narcan.
Approximately 20 minutes later, he was transported to Trinity Moline Hospital, and by the time Hill caught up with him, he was alert and talking, "which was such a relief to me, because I thought he was gone.” The episode marked the first time she'd ever seen him in distress. Although she declined to discuss the specifics of his treatment at the hospital, she did say that his friends talked him into staying overnight and that she and Johnson remained at his side. “He was very cooperative that whole night,” she said, and that he was “serious about getting help.”
And he was making an effort, she said, adding that he'd accepted the idea that he needed help. "That's the part that breaks my heart because was trying."
She says that although she alerted Prince's team that he was in trouble, she didn't realize the extent of her vegan, clean-living friend's chronic pain until after he died and stories of his increasing dependence on prescription drugs surfaced. “I only know what everyone knows about his pain — I read about it,” she said. In person, she said, “he was quick on his feet. Never said anything, that this is hurting, never a sign of struggle. That’s why it’s all very shocking.”
Six days later, he was found dead in the elevator at Paisley Park. Hill awoke to texts on her phone in Los Angeles. "That was definitely the worst day of my life," she said.
Investigators in Carver County, Minn., where his Paisley Park recording studio and home are located, are still investigating whether the fentanyl that killed him was legally acquired.
Hill, who attended the private memorial service at Paisley Park the weekend after his death, says she's only begun to realize how much she'd come to depend on his counsel. He had co-produced her album and had advised her on how to get out of a record contract as well as giving her tips on touring. “Now he’s gone, and I realize I was leaning on him a lot,” she said. “And that’s what’s scary. I’m on my own.”
Contributing: The Associated Press
