One Year Later: Paramedics Open Up About Anna Nicole Smith’s Final Moments

It was one year ago this Friday that Anna Nicole Smith died while staying at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida. Now for the first time, the paramedics who tried to save her life reveal what really happened when they arrived and found total chaos.

“We got a call for a female, a young female passed out at the hotel,” paramedic Chris Korn said.

“What is the mind set when you head out to something like that?” Access Hollywood’s Tony Potts asked the paramedics.

“You start thinking about what you are gonna be doing on the scene and how to get prepared on the way to the call,” firefighter paramedic Patrick Wilkie responded.

“So when you arrived on that day, what did you see?” Tony asked.

“We saw a female patient unconscious, not breathing on the floor,” Chris recounted.

“And was the room secure?” Tony asked.

“There [were] probably 20-25 people in the room when we got there,” Chris explained. “We cleared the room. Along with the Seminole Fire Department, we started working on the patient.”

“And at any time did you realize who your patient was?” Tony asked.

“For myself, it was as soon as I saw her,” Chris said.

“I actually realized it was Anna Nicole Smith when I [saw] her husband enter the room,” firefighter paramedic Kerry Boyett said. “He [looked] familiar and I recognized him and I put two and two together.

It was not her husband, but rather Anna Nicole’s longtime companion, Howard K. Stern.

“[He had a] typical, very distraught reaction, upset, you know,” Kerry said of Howard.

“At what point did you decide, ‘We need to take her to a hospital?’” Tony asked.

“Once we got to a certain stage in our procedures it was time to pack her up and go,” Chris said.

“We put her on a backboard first,” Patrick said of their next move. “It’s tough doing CPR on the gurney. At that point we packaged her up and took her downstairs.”

“Describe the scene to me. Who was with you?” Tony asked.

“I believe one of my firefighters who was on the engine that day [who] responded to the call with us, was performing CPR in the elevator down to the lobby,” Chris said.

“Was Big Moe, the bodyguard, was he with you as well in the elevator?” Tony asked.

“He traveled to the hospital in the ambulance. I don’t believe he was in the elevator,” Chris said.

“When you found out later that she had passed, how did that affect you?” Tony asked.

“Just that she was a young woman, 39 years old,” Patrick said. “You are not supposed to go into cardiac arrest that young.”