John Travolta, his eyes filled with tears, bade his son an emotional farewell at a Bahamian hospital, hugging the teen’s lifeless body and telling him, “I’m sorry, Jett,” according to a witness to the heart-wrenching scene.
Tarino Lightbourn, the first EMT to arrive at Travolta’s vacation condo after Jett was found unconscious, told “Inside Edition” it was one of the saddest moments imaginable.
“I think he meant, ‘I’m sorry, Jett. I did all I could do,” the EMT said in the interview broadcast yesterday.
The boy was pronounced dead at the hospital.
An autopsy on Jett was completed yesterday, and although the 54-year-old star and his 46-year-old actress wife, Kelly Preston, didn’t publicly release the results, an official who saw a copy of the death certificate said the 16-year-old died from a seizure.
Jett’s body was in “great condition” and showed no sign of head trauma, Glen Campbell, an assistant director at the funeral home handling the teen’s remains told The Associated Press.
Police officials in the Bahamas had said the teen hit his head on a bathtub before he died.
Jett, who had a history of seizures, was found unconscious in a bathroom last Friday inside the family’s condo on Grand Bahama Island. Campbell said the death certificate was based on the autopsy findings, but gave no further information on the cause of death beyond the word “seizure.”
After the autopsy was performed, the body was moved to the Restview Memorial Mortuary in Freeport, Travolta’s spokesman said. A coffin was placed in a hearse and taken to the airport, but funeral home director Keith McSweeney said the car didn’t contain Jett’s body, which was being cremated.
Travolta and his wife returned to Florida with the remains today.
The couple received an urn with his ashes and left the island chain on Monday night, according to Obie Wilchcombe, a member of the Bahamas parliament and a family friend.
“Everything was in place, the cremation was completed, and they decided to leave,” Wilchcombe told The Associated Press on Tuesday. He said the family is back in Ocala, Fla., where they have a home.
The Travolta spokesman said the sad journey home was made on the family’s private jet, the Jett Clipper Ella – affectionately named after Jett and his sister, Ella Bleu.
The family plans to hold a wake today and then a funeral service tomorrow in Ocala, Fla., where the “Pulp Fiction” star owns a home.
They’ll bury Jett in nearby Jumbolair.
Meanwhile, Lightbourn, in the “Inside Edition” interview, revealed more details about the Travoltas’ final minutes with their son.
Lightbourn said the couple was frantic at the sight of Jett’s limp body as they climbed into the back of the ambulance.
“Jett, come on, come around!” Travolta told his son, said Lightbourn, echoing another EMT who spoke out Sunday.
A weeping Preston took her son’s hand and said, “Come on, baby, come on, Jett!”
Lightbourn said he then heard Travolta, who had tried to revive his son with CPR, cry out, “God, please help me!”