QUICK TAKES - Sept. 24, 2009
John Travolta said Wednesday he tried desperately to save the life of his seizure-prone son and gave perhaps his first public description of the boy as autistic as he testified in the Bahamas trial of two people accused of trying to blackmail him.
Travolta said that he performed CPR on his son after a nanny alerted him Jan. 2 that the teen had fallen ill at a family vacation home on Grand Bahama island. Jett Travolta later died of a seizure.
Travolta is a witness at the trial of paramedic Tarino Lightbourne and former Bahamian Sen. Pleasant Bridgewater, who are accused of trying to extort $25 million from the 55-year-old movie star amid threats that emergency scene documentation would be made public. Both defendants pleaded not guilty to extortion charges at the trial that began Monday.
The actor said that Jett suffered seizures every five to 10 days. He said that the seizures would last 45 seconds to a minute and that Jett typically slept for 12 hours after each one.
The judge dismissed Travolta on Wednesday afternoon but said he would be called back later for further testimony.
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