Gary Coleman’s panicked wife initially balked at helping him after he suffered an apparent head injury that left him bloodied, according her 911 call.
Shannon Price, 24, tells the operator that Coleman was stricken while preparing her something to eat the evening of May 26 downstairs in their Santaquin, Utah, home.
“He just got home, I heard this big bang, I went downstairs. Blood everywhere,” she says. “I don’t know if he’s okay. I’m not down there right now because I have seizures, if I get stressed out I’m going to seize.”
Price says, “He fell. His head is bloody. There’s blood all over the floor. I don’t know what happened.” The operator asks, “Is there any way you can go down there at all?” Price replies, “I’ll try, I don’t know, I mean…”
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When the operator asks if anyone else is there who can go downstairs, Price says, “No,” and adds, “I’ve just been kind of sick. I don’t want to be traumatized right now.”
Price then is heard saying, “Gary, are you okay?” and telling him, “Stay where you are” and “Don t move, Gary.”
The operator asks Price to tell Coleman to put pressure on his own wound. “Gary, you have to put pressure on your wound,” Price is heard saying. “He’s lethargic, I can’t really help him. I just need help quick.”
The operator says help is on the way. “I just can’t be here with the blood,” Price says. “I’m sorry, I can’t do it. I can’t. There’s blood all over and I can’t do anything.”
Price then says, “I can’t drive” because she’s been sick with a fever. “I can’t do anything right now.”
The operator asks Price “to at least give him a towel” so Coleman can apply pressure to his wound. Price replies, “Yeah, I’m just panicked. I don’t know what to do I just don t want him to die. I’m freaking out.”
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Next, she’s heard telling Coleman, “You have to put this on your head Keep pressure on this, okay, hold this.” She tells Coleman, “You need to sit down. Sit down! Gary, sit down!”
She tells the operator just moments before emergency crews arrive: “I’m gagging, I got blood on myself, I can’t deal.”
Coleman, 42, was taken off life support two days later after doctors determined he’d suffered a brain hemorrhage and his condition worsened. An official cause of death is still pending an investigation. Police say there was nothing suspicious about his accident.
Funeral plans have not yet been finalized, although the Price family may hold services by week’s end in Utah, according to Coleman’s attorney Randy Kester.
