LOS ANGELES - One of Michael Jackson's staff members testified on Thursday that on the day of the singer's death, he saw Jackson lying on a bed while his personal physician gave him chest compressions with one hand. He also said the doctor had asked him to put various medical supplies in a bag before calling 911.
Alberto Alvarez, Jackson's director of logistics, said he had gone into Jackson's bedroom in his rented Holmby Hills mansion once Jackson's doctor, Conrad Murray, realized that the singer was incapacitated after the doctor had injected him with a potent medicine.
Dr. Murray, 58, who is on trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court on charges of involuntary manslaughter in the singer's death, faces up to four years in prison if convicted.
Mr. Jackson, 50, died June 25, 2009, after Dr. Murray gave him a dose of propofol, a surgical anesthetic the singer took to relieve his insomnia.
Prosecutors argue that Dr. Murray was negligent, first in regularly dispensing propofol to Jackson and then by failing to monitor the singer's vital signs and to immediately seek emergency help as he lay dying.
Dr. Murray's lawyers, however, have said that Jackson caused his own death by taking propofol by himself when Dr. Murray was using a restroom at Jackson's mansion. The doctor's lawyer, Ed Chernoff, said Jackson also got regular injections of a pain killer from another doctor, which Dr. Murray was unaware of.
Mr. Chernoff said during his opening statement that propofol, which is not commonly used outside medical facilities, could be administered safely at low levels.
On Thursday, Mr. Alvarez said he saw Jackson lying on his back with his eyes and mouth open while Dr. Murray tried to revive him.
"When I came into the room, he said, 'Alberto, hurry, we have to get him to a hospital, we have to get an ambulance,' " Mr. Alvarez said.
Mr. Alvarez said that when he asked what had happened, Dr. Murray told him, "He had a bad reaction."
Mr. Alvarez called 911, he said, following Dr. Murray's instructions.
But before making the 911 call, he said, Dr. Murray instructed him to help put some medical supplies into a bag, including a handful of vials from Jackson's nightstand and a saline bag with another bottle inside it from an IV stand.
Mr. Alvarez said he thought they were packing up the medicine to get ready to go to the hospital. When prosecutors on Thursday showed Mr. Alvarez a saline bag and a vial of propofol that the authorities had removed from the Jackson mansion, Mr. Alvarez said they looked like the materials the doctor had asked him to put in the bag.
The prosecution is seeking to establish that Dr. Murray delayed calling 911 and tried to conceal the drugs, including propofol, that he was giving Jackson.
On Wednesday, Michael Amir Williams, Jackson's personal assistant, testified that after Jackson was pronounced dead at a hospital, Dr. Murray asked him to drive him to Jackson's house so he could recover "some cream in Michael's room or house that he wouldn't want the world to know about."
Mr. Williams said he refused that request, as well as a later request from Dr. Murray to take him to get something to eat.
Jackson's head of security, Faheem Muhammad, testified that after Mr. Williams told him about his conversation with Dr. Murray, he decided not to allow Dr. Murray to re-enter the Jackson mansion.
Mr. Muhammad told the court that before Jackson was taken to the hospital, he walked into the singer's bedroom to find Jackson incapacitated, his body lying on the floor, with Dr. Murray beside him. Mr. Muhammad said Dr. Murray, a cardiologist, had asked, "Does anyone know CPR?"
Mr. Muhammad said Jackson's two older children - Prince and Paris - had been outside their father's bedroom, crying. He said he took them to another room in the house.
Timothy Williams contributed reporting from New York.
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