Authorities have released the transcripts to calls placed to emergency services by workers at the ski resort where actress Natasha Richardson fell and hit her head. The transcripts give a pretty detailed time line of what went on, noting that the resort staff called for an ambulance immediately after she took the spill, at about 1pm, but when medics arrived, there was no one to treat. Ten minutes later, the call was canceled because Richardson reportedly said she “felt fine” and refused treatment.

This is where the timeline gets a little confusing. The article says that two hours later, the resort again called 911 when Richardson began to complain of severe headaches. That would make it roughly 3:00. However, the article goes on to state that Richardson’s “vital signs were normal during the 4 p.m. ambulance ride on March 16.. she didn’t know where she was, what day it was or what had happened to her.”

It took an hour for the ambulance to get there? We also know that she was stabilized at a local hospital, but wasn’t transferred to the closest trauma center until 5:55 (almost two hours later). By the time she arrived at the trauma center at 6:38, her pupils were dilated and she was unresponsive.

I don’t know very much about emergency medical services or what kind of conditions they would have been operating in up on top of the mountain there, and far be it from be to give even the slightest inkling of possible credibility to a Fox News Outlet, but don’t those turnaround times seem a little slow?

You’d never know it if you look at the numerous skin-deep attempts at philosophy he posts on his account, or the fact that his relationship with Jennifer Aniston ended in part due to his obsessive posting, but not only is John Mayer not addicted to Twitter, he told E! that he thinks it’s “silly and dumb”, and “one step away from sending pictures of your poop.”

“It’s inherently silly and it’s inherently dumb,” the singer told me last night at the One Splendid Evening benefit for the VH1 Save the Music Foundation aboard the Carnival Splendor cruise ship in San Pedro, Calif. “If you really think that Twitter is the pathway to spiritual enlightenment, well…It’s one step away from sending pictures of your poop.”

So why does the Grammy-winner twitter all the time?

“I’ve always communicated at a high level as best I can whether it’s Twitter, Napster or message boards or wherever,” Mayer said. “I don’t have a devotion to Twitter. I didn’t sell out to Twitter. You do Twitter until everybody gets off of Twitter and it’s something else you go and try out.”

If you set Google Translator to translate from Douchebag > English, and put in that interview, you get: “I’ll do anything that’s popular– even if my condescending false sense of superiority tells me it’s ridiculous and dumb– because I’m a sellout. Or a hypocrite. Or both. On is a the breadfruit cusp.”

In what may just be the best case of prophetic naming this TV season, NBC’s  reality cooking show Chopping Block has been, well, put on the chopping block. The show debuted March 12th and aired only 3 episodes before being cut from the lineup. NBC plans to run old episodes of Law & Order: Criminal Intent in its place.

Did anyone actually watch this show? I only knew it existed because Best Week Ever once lampooned how everyone on the show would incessantly make cheesey puns based on the show’s name– about people being “chopped.”

If I had known that it was hosted by Gordon Ramsay’s former mentor, Marco-Pierre White, I might have bothered to watch the first episode. Reportedly, White once made Ramsay cry when he was a cooking school student and the two have had a big falling out in recent years.

In response to the news, Chef Ramsay inexplicably changed his shirt a few times on camera, cursed alot, then whipped up a delicious roast with a hot side of schadenfreude.

Star Magazine is reporting that Angelina Jolie is contemplating giving a “sizeable donation” to octo-mom Nadya Suleman to help with childcare and medical costs:

Star has learned the actress is seriously considering donating thousands of dollars to the overwhelmed 33-year-old single mom, whose brood includes 2-month-old octuplets.

“Angelina is worried about the best interests of the kids,” explains a source. “As a mom of six, she knows how chaotic and costly raising a big family can be.”

But keep in mind that this is Star Magazine, and you’d be better off believing stories told by Courtney Love in an AA meeting. I find it highly doubtful that Jolie feels anything other than disturbed by this woman and her obsession with her. Doing anything to encourage that attachment would be an extremely stupid move. Say what you want about Jolie, she’s not that stupid.

Of all the people you could pick to stalk, why Shawn Johnson? Not that the inner workings of a stalker’s mind are at all rational, but I’ve often wondered what it is that triggers these people to become fixated on random d-list celebrities.

Last week, Wendie posted about Robert O’Ryan being arrested while trying to sneak on to the set of Dancing with the stars in an attempt to meet up with 17-year-old wholesome as American flags wrapped in babies and baked in apple pie Shawn Johnson.
I remember hearing that guns and duct tape were found in his car, and that he was convinced that she wanted him to father her child. Ryan has since been charged with one felony count of stalking and two misdemeanor counts of carrying a loaded firearm in a vehicle.

But hold on to your bags and bags of anti-psychotic drugs, it gets even weirder:

“The LAPD located a loaded .45 handgun, a loaded shotgun, and materials classically used for kidnapping including duct tape, zip ties, and a map to the victim. Also found were love letters, clippings and other information on the victim.”
“He had packed all his belongings and permanently left Florida to drive out here to be with [Shawn Johnson], he believes that she speaks to him personally through the television set and through ESP and that they will have a child together, he stated he would be with her no matter what.”

I’m going to ignore the humorous use of “classically” to describe kidnapping tools, and instead focus on the fact that Shawn Johnson has horrible super powers that threaten to invade our minds at any moment. Whatever you do, do NOT watch Dancing With the Stars, unless you also want to be driven insane and impregnated by her mutant seed. This threat must be controled people! Seriously scary.

In other stalker news, an Austrian fugitive was arrested in Mexico and deported back to her home country on Thursday so she can stand trial for stalking David Caruso.
WTF? David fucking Caruso?? Are you serious? According to the Associated Press, the woman wrote 100’s of fan letters to Caruso, asked him for an autograph, and then began writing letters threatening to kill him when he refused to give her one.
There is a CSI joke in here somewhere, but it’s eluding me. Someone break out the hammy acting and the blacklights so I can find it.

In the opening monologue of Tuesday night’s Late Night with Douchebag Who Will Never Be As Awesome as Conan O’Brien,”Jimmy Fallon told a joke about an airport in Prague called the “Franz Kafka International Airport”:

“A new study has ranked the Franz Kafka International Airport in Prague as the world’s worst, due to long lines and lost luggage. It must be bad, because the second worst airport in the world? The Hudson River!”

The only funny thing about this “joke”– aside from the irony that it crashed harder than US Air Flight 1549 itself when it hit the Hudson– is the fact that the “Franz Kafka International Airport” in Prague exists only in a story on The Onion’s website (and perhaps inside the existential dillemas in your mind).

It was part of a satirical news video which reported that the airport tormented its visitors with, amongst other things, dead-end terminals and a shuttle service that loops around the airport and then deposits passengers back at their original starting points.

To be fair, this gaff is most likely the fault of someone on the writing staff at Late Night. I’m sure Fallon is too busy murdering humor to actually write his own bad jokes.

A couple of Natasha Richardson stories for you to get the weekend started off right. And because, unlike the undertaker, the media hasn’t yet managed to suck every little bit of life’s blood from her cold, dead body.
I give it about another two weeks before she stops popping up on Morning Express with Robin Meade.

First, an Ohio couple is crediting Richardson with saving their daughter’s life. After the dad of the year whacked his daughter, Morgan, in the head with a baseball while playing in the yard, the 7-year-old got a goose egg on her temple. Her parents iced it down and the swelling went away. Their daughter seemed fine, so they didn’t think anything of it.

Three days later, they saw a story about Richardson on CNN, and noting how Natasha had seemed just fine after falling and hitting her head, the couple decided to take their daughter to the emergency room.
Turns out, the kid had the same injury as Richardson: an epidural hematoma.

Unlike Richardson’s, Morgan’s story has a happy ending. After surgery and five days in the hospital, she’s at home and doing fine. “Dr. Cohen told us that if we hadn’t brought her in Thursday night, she never would have woken up,” McCracken says.

Now the McCrackens sometimes wonder if they waited too long to get Morgan to a doctor. After hearing about Richardson’s death, many people are asking themselves the same question: Do all head injuries need attention, even ones that seem minor?

I once got elbowed in the forehead by a Thai guy named Tata while playing basketball in Japan. I’ll give you a tiny moment to process that before I move on.
A big ole tootsiepop-sized lump quickly erupted on my forehead. The swelling went down after a few hours, and after having to deal with the ignominy of a blackish/greenish eye for a few weeks, I was fine… OR WAS I??
Next time I say something reeeeeally offensive, you can blame it on the epidural hematoma talking. Unless it’s funny. In that case, I said it.

Secondly, some whackball kookjobs (and by whackball kookjobs, of course I mean The New York Post) are attempting to blame Richardson’s death on everyone’s favorite lovably laid back, backwards neighbor to the north: Canada. Specifically, they’re blaming it on the healthcare that is available in smaller Canadian towns like the one where Natasha went skiing.

Richardson died of an epidural hematoma — a bleeding artery between the skull and brain that compresses and ultimately causes fatal brain damage via pressure buildup. With prompt diagnosis by CT scan, and surgery to drain the blood, most patients survive.

Could Richardson have received this care? Where it happened in Canada, no. In many US resorts, yes.

The article goes on to say that the lack of “technology like CT scanners and quick access to specialists like neurosurgeons” may have caused what would have been a treatable condition in even the smallest of U.S. towns to become fatal.

But if Canadacare hadn’t killed Natasha, that little girl in Ohio would be dead by now!

Go throw your rock in a pond and think about that one for a while!