갑작스런 여배우의 죽음

영국출신의 여배우 나타샤 리처드슨(Natasha Richardson, 45세)이 어제 저녁(18일) 갑자기 세상을 떠났습니다. 지난 월요일(16일) 남편이 토론토에서 촬영을 하는 사이 몬트리올 북쪽의 한 스키장에서 스키를 즐기고 있었지요. 스키 강습을 받던 중 넘어져 머리를 다쳤습니다.

쓰러졌다 일어나 이야기도 하고 정상적인 움직임을 보여 괜찮다고 생각했으나 약 한시간 후 머리가 아픈 증세를 느껴 몬트리올의 병원에서 치료를 받았습니다.

다음 날(17일) 개인 비행기로 뉴욕의 한 병원으로 옮겨 치료를 계속했으나 의식불명에서 깨어나지 못하고 결국 세상을 떠났습니다. 헬멧을 쓰지 않은 것으로 보아 뇌출혈이 아니었을까 짐작해봅니다.

메이든 인 맨하탄(Maid in Manhattan)에 출연하는 등 우리에게도 친숙한 배우였기에 안타까움을 더합니다. 

비슷한 경우의 이야기입니다. 친구의 어머님은 사고가 날 당시 67세 이셨습니다. 계원들이랑 제법 먼 거리의 온천으로 나들이를 가셨습니다. 들뜬 마음으로 탕을 드나들던 중 미끄러져 넘어졌습니다. 바닥에 머리를 부딫혔지요. 일어나 앉긴 했으나 머리가 아픈 증세가 있어 병원에서 진단을 받아보기로 했습니다. 외진 곳이라 병원으로 찾기가 어려웠지요. 가까스로 병원을 찾았고 치료를 시작했을 땐 이미 의식을 잃었습니다.

뇌출혈이라 했습니다. 산소 호흡기를 끼우고 목으로 구멍을 뚫어 음식을 주입하였습니다. 일주일동안 의식불명에 있었지만 산소 호흡기를 떼지 않았습니다.

병문을 가서 친구를 만나 이야기를 나누었습니다. 아버지도 일찍 돌아가셔서 삼남매만 남았는데 산소 호흡기를 달고 계시더라도 살아만 계셔준다면 좋겠다고 눈물을 글썽였습니다.

머리에 고인 피를 다 뽑아내었음에도 의식은 깨어나지 않았습니다. 희망이 없으니 산소 호흡기를 떼어 편히 가시게 해 드리면 좋겠다고 하는 사람도 있었습니다. 하지만 친구는 단 1%의 가능성을 믿으며 기다렸습니다. 직장에서 일이 끝나면 두 시간을 운전하여 병원으로 와 어머님의 병상을 지키고 다음 날 아침 다시 두 시간을 운전하여 일터로 갔습니다.

기적이 벌어졌습니다. 삼주 만에 어머님의 의식이 깨어난 것입니다. 이후로도 한참동안 병원에 더 계셔야 했습니다. 친구의 삼형제는 어머님이 깨어나신 것을 기적으로 알고 기뻐합니다. 기억력을 다소 잃으셨지만, 말씀하시는 건 좀 어눌하시지만, 걸음걸이가 다소 온전치 않지만 깨어나셨다는 사실만으로도 기뻐하고 행복해 합니다. 자녀들의 효심이 어머님의 생명을 구했다고 칭찬이 자자합니다.

뇌출혈의 경우 빨리 병원으로 옮겨 머릿속에 고인 피만 뽑아내야합니다. 그러면 생명을 구할 수 있습니다. 얼마나 빨리 발견하여 피가 흐른 것을 방지 하느냐, 뇌속에 흐른 피를 뽑아내느냐에 따라 상황이 달라집니다. 머리에 충격이 가해져 조금이라도 이상할 경우 빨리 병원에 가보는 것이 상수입니다.

나타샤 리처드슨은 스키 슬로프에서 넘어진 후 바로 일어나고 농담도 할 정도로 상태가 양호하였습니다. 엠블런스를 불렀지만 필요없다고 도로 돌려보냈습니다. 한참의 시간이 지난 후 머리에 통증을 호소하여 급히 병원으로 옮겼지만 너무 늦어버렸습니다.

미숙한 초기대응이 아쉽고 안타깝습니다. 늘씬한 몸매에 서글서글해 보이는 성격, 보기만 해도 행복해지는 멋진 배우를 잃게 되어 아쉽습니다. 정해진 운명으로 생각할 수밖에 없겠지요.   

우리에게 주어진 하루는 크나큰 축복이자 선물임을 상기해 봅니다. 동녘에서 떠 오르르는 붉은 태양이 싱그럽습니다. 봄기운이 가득한 아침입니다.

추위를 피해 남쪽으로 떠났던 기러기들은 힘찬 날갯짓으로 되돌아오고 있겠지요.      

<Fairytale's tragic end : British actress' death a heartbreaking conclusion to a beautiful romance>

 In the aftermath of what originally looked like a minor accident on a Quebec ski slope, actress Natasha Richardson has died in New York.

She was surrounded by family, including her actor husband Liam Neeson, their two young sons and her mother Vanessa Redgrave.

The fall occurred Monday on the beginners' hill at the Mont-Tremblant ski resort in the Laurentians north of Montreal. Richardson, 45, complained of headaches an hour after the incident and was rushed to the Hopital du Sacre-Coeur de Montreal for treatment. Neeson flew in from Toronto, where he had been shooting the thriller Chloe for Canadian director Atom Egoyan.

With Neeson by her side, Richardson was transported by private jet to New York - their home base - on Tuesday night.

Wednesday, at the Upper East Side hospital, the family took her off life support.

The tragedy put an abrupt end to one of Hollywood's fairytale marriages.

In a business in which some unions last mere months, or even weeks, Richardson and Neeson have been inseparable since co-starring with Jodie Foster in the wild-child drama Nell, which was released in 1994. They married that year on July 3, the first marriage for Neeson (although he lived with Helen Mirren during the 1980s) and the second for her.

Having met them separately before and after their marriage, it was clear that both felt each had finally met a true soulmate in the other. They perfectly complemented one another and took joy in parenting their two sons: Micheal Richard Antonio Neeson, born June 22, 1995, and Daniel Jack Neeson, born Aug. 27, 1996.

While they shared an appreciation for the craft of acting and never seemed to let the ego of celebrity get in their way, Neeson and Richardson came from radically different backgrounds, proving that opposites attract.

Neeson, now 57, was born in modest circumstances in Ballymena, County Antrim in Northern Ireland. His mother was a cook, his father a caretaker at the local Roman Catholic primary school. Neeson dabbled in boxing, took up acting in school, tried to land a contract as a pro soccer player and spent several years in a variety of jobs, including as a Guinness forklift driver. He was training as a teacher and working in an architectural office when he landed his first film role, as Evangelist in Ken Anderson's lamentable The Pilgrim's Progress.

In contrast, Richardson was a member of one of the most prestigious arts and culture families in modern British history. Her mother, Vanessa Redgrave, has six Oscar nominations, one Academy Award, and dozens of other citations. Natasha's father, the late Tony Richardson, won an Oscar for directing Tom Jones and made other significant films such as Look Back in Anger and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. Natasha made her own film debut -- at the age of four -- as the wedding flower girl in her father's Crimean war film, The Charge of the Light Brigade in 1968.

The family lineage goes back generations. Natasha's great-grandfather is the late Roy Redgrave, the English-born legend of Australian silent films. Her grandparents are the late actors Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson. Her mother is married to Italian actor Franco Nero. Her aunt is actress Lynn Redgrave. Her uncle is actor Corin Redgrave. Her sister is actress Joely Richardson. Her cousin -- the fourth generation in the Redgrave clan to turn to acting -- is Jemma Redgrave.

In this milieu, it was inevitable that Natasha Richardson should end up on stage and on screen. She was born in London on May 11, 1963. After attending St. Paul's Girls' School, she found her calling at London's Central School of Speech and Drama. She launched her professional career in regional British theatre and made her official big-screen debut as Miss Bridle in the 1983 British drama, Every Picture Tells a Story.

Her career took shape after she played Frankenstein author Mary Shelley in bombastic Ken Russell's Gothic in 1986. That performance inspired American director Paul Schrader to cast her in the title role of his controversial bio-pic, Patty Hearst, in 1988.

After that role, Richardson worked steadily in films such as A Month in the Country, Fat Man and Little Boy, The Handmaid's Tale and The Comfort of Strangers. During this period, she met her first husband, actor Robert Fox. They married in late 1990 and divorced in 1993. Later roles included The Parent Trap, Blow Dry, Waking up in Reno, Maid in Manhattan, The White Countess and the 2008 film Wild Child, her final screen credit.

Throughout her film career, Richardson appeared on stage, most recently as Blanche DuBois in the Roundabout theatre Company's revival of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. John C. Reilly played Stanley Kowalski. Richardson had won a 1998 Tony Award as best actress in a musical for playing Sally Bowles in Cabaret, an earlier Roundabout revival production.

For all her fame -- and that of her Oscar-nominated husband -- Richardson and Neeson never presented themselves as anything other than working actors. The most recent time I interviewed Neeson, he discussed the actor's ego.

"Actors never give up their ego," he said. "We place it in different places. We surrender it to a point -- but only to a point."

The same words applied equally well to Natasha Richardson. For all her breeding, for all her famous family members, for all her sterling credits, she remained humble -- and crazily in love with Liam Neeson.

(source : TORONTO SUN THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 2009, By BRUCE KIRKLAND - Sun Media)

 

 <Richardson's death accidental>

NEW YORK -- Natasha Richardson died from bleeding in her skull caused by the fall she took on a ski slope, an autopsy found Thursday.

The medical examiner ruled her death an accident, and doctors said she might have survived had she received immediate treatment. However, nearly four hours elapsed between her lethal fall and her admission to a hospital.

The Tony-winning actress suffered from an epidural hematoma, which causes bleeding between the skull and the brain's covering, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the New York City medical examiner's office.

Such bleeding is often caused by a skull fracture, and it can quickly produce a blood clot that puts pressure on the brain. That pressure can force the brain downward, pressing on the brain stem that controls breathing and other vital functions.

Patients with such an injury often feel fine immediately after being hurt because symptoms from the bleeding may take time to emerge.

"This is a very treatable condition if you're aware of what the problem is and the patient is quickly transferred to a hospital," said Dr. Keith Siller of New York University Langone Medical Center. "But there is very little time to correct this." 

To prevent coma or death, surgeons frequently cut off part of the skull to give the brain room to swell.

once you have more swelling, it causes more trauma which causes more swelling," said Dr. Edward Aulisi, neurosurgery chief at Washington Hospital Center in the nation's capital. "It's a vicious cycle because everything's inside a closed space."

Richardson, 45, died Wednesday at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan after falling at the Mont Tremblant resort in Quebec on Monday. Details of her treatment have not been disclosed.

It remained unclear Thursday exactly how she was injured. Resort officials have said only that she fell on a beginner's trail and later reported not feeling well.

A CT scan can detect bleeding, bruising or the beginning of swelling in the brain. The challenge is for patients to know whether to seek one.

"If there's any question in your mind whatsoever, you get a head CT," Aulisi advised. "It's the best 20 seconds you ever spent in your life."

Descended from one of Britain's greatest acting dynasties, including her mother, Vanessa Redgrave, Richardson was known for her work in such plays as "Cabaret" (for which she won a Tony) and "Anna Christie" and in the films "Patty Hearst" and "The Handmaid's Tale."

Mourning continued Thursday with Broadway theaters dimming their lights in Richardson's honor at 8 p.m., the traditional starting time for evening performances.

Praise also came from both tabloid celebrities such as "The Parent Trap" co-star Lindsay Lohan and theater artists like Sam Mendes, who directed the 1998 revival of "Cabaret."

"It defies belief that this gifted, brave, tenacious, wonderful woman is gone," said Mendes, who also directed the Academy Award-winning "American Beauty."

Charlotte St. Martin, executive director of The Broadway League, the trade organization for Broadway theaters and producers, called Richardson one of our finest young actresses."

"Her theatrical lineage is legendary, but her own singular talent shined memorably on any stage she appeared," she said.

A spokesman for the family, Los Angeles-based Alan Nierob, said he had no information about funeral arrangements. Instead of flowers, the family asked that donations be made to the amfAR foundation for AIDS research, Nierob said. Richardson, whose father died of complications from the disease in 1991, was a longtime supporter of the charity and served on its board of trustees since 2006.

Richardson gave several memorable stage performances, more than living up to some of the theater's most famous roles: Sally Bowles of "Cabaret," Blanche DuBois of "A Streetcar Named Desire" and the title character of Eugene O'Neill's "Anna Christie," a 1993 revival in which she co-starred with future husband Liam Neeson. (They have two sons: Micheal, 13, and Daniel, 12.)

Her final feature film, "Wild Child," has been released internationally but has not been released in the U.S., and Universal Pictures said one had not been scheduled.

The death of Richardson, who was not wearing a helmet, greatly heightened the debate over skiing safety. In Quebec, officials are considering making helmets mandatory on ski hills.

Jean-Pascal Bernier, a spokesman for Quebec Sport and Leisure Minister Michelle Courchesne, said Thursday that the minister met with emergency room doctors this week and will meet with ski hill operators soon.

Emergency room doctors in the province first called for mandatory use of helmets three weeks ago.

Questions also arose about why the first ambulance called to the ski resort was turned away.

Yves Coderre, director of operations at the emergency services company that sent paramedics to the Mont Tremblant resort, told The Globe and Mail newspaper that he reviewed the dispatch records and the first 911 call came at 12:43 p.m. Monday.

Coderre said medics arrived at the hill 17 minutes later. But the actress refused medical attention, he said, so ambulance staffers turned and left after spotting a sled taking the still-conscious actress away to the resort's on-site clinic.

At 3 p.m., a second 911 call was made -- this time from Richardson's luxury hotel room -- as her condition deteriorated. An ambulance arrived nine minutes later.

"She was conscious and they could talk to her," Coderre said. "But she showed instability."

The medics tended to her for a half-hour before transporting her to a hospital a 40-minute drive away.

On Thursday, the ski resort where Richardson had her fatal fall was subdued, as employees refused to speak about the accident.

Still, the sunny slopes were crowded -- and the gentle hill Richardson fell on was teeming with beginners, many of them children.

Dozens of skiers and snowboarders took breaks from the runs to discuss Richardson's death -- and many said they bought a helmet because of Richardson.

"I bought a helmet yesterday after I heard," said Nathalie Beaulieu, 41. "My daughters always wear them, but now my husband and I will, too."

Not everyone said they would change their ways.

"I haven't worn one up to now and I'm OK," said Jacques Garnier, 45. "My kids wear them, for sure, though."

* * *

Associated Press writers Lauran Neergaard in Washington, Maria Cheng in London, Karen Matthews in New York and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.

(By Hillel Italie, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)