Paramedics Thought Sweat Lodge Was Scene of Mass Suicide

It is shaping up to seem that not only is James Ray culpable for the deaths of four people and the injury of many others, but his hired staff looks to share much of the blame as well. Paramedics who showed up to respond to 911 calls to the Sedona sweat lodge thought at first that the scene was a mass suicide attempt!

From the Examiner here:

Former James Ray employee, Melinda Martin, told ABC’s Nightline that the paramedics who first arrived on the scene of the October 8, 2009 James Ray “Spiritual Warrior” sweat lodge retreat thought they had arrived at an attempted mass suicide. That is how horrifically out of control the situation had become.

Ms. Martin described how one man suffered severe burns. She said, “One guy, he had fallen into the pit in the middle, fallen into the pit of molten rocks and he had burned his entire arm. And all the white of his skin was gone. The skin was just hanging off of his elbow, down his legs, down both sides of his arm.” This victim was so controlled by Ray that he went back into the sweat lodge! This is the type of mind control that Charles Manson had over his followers.

People were so ill they were projectile vomiting, and so weak they were laying in their own vomit. When Ms. Martin told more senior James Ray International employees she wanted to call 911, she was told not to call because that happened before and James Ray was very angry about it.

Colleen Conaway was a new follower of James Ray. She was in debt to Ray for $12,000.00. At one of Ray’s events a few months prior to the deadly sweat lodge fiasco, Ms. Conaway committed suicide. Ray and his staff were so insensitive to her wellbeing that she layed in the morgue for seven hours before they decided to see what happened to her. For those seven hours she was simply tagged as a “Jane Doe”.

So the James Ray employees also knew that they were pushing the limits of people and even actively discouraged calls for medical assistance. Someones got lots of lawsuits coming their way.