Thursday, October 21, 2010

Two More Hints About The Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber

In several earlier posts I theorized that Paul was experimented on in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber nicknamed the Lotus bed and manufactured by the English company, Vickers.  I found two more hints that suggest just that. 

In the Los Angeles radio station fanzine, KRLA Beat, they had an interview of Paul that they published April 21, 1965.  Dave Hull of KRLA did the interview.  The relevant part is:
     DAVE:  When you returned, Derek told me you were impressed with the performance in Hollywood and
                   also that you were impressed with one other place, and that was the Red Rock Stadium in
                   Denver.  Is that correct?
     PAUL:   Yes, actually we were impressed with alot more places than that.  But we enjoyed Red Rock.
                   It was funny playing there because it's the mile-high city and the air is different a mile high.  It's
                   much harder to breathe.  We felt sort of drunk or something on stage.  We were sort of falling
                   about.
     DAVE:   Because of the oxygen, I suppose.
     PAUL:   Somebody said it was that.  Sounds feasible.  Might not be true.  Might be we were just
                   imagining it.  Very hard to sing.  None of us could get any breath.

This exchange is interesting because  Derek Taylor, The Beatles' former press secretary specifically mentions Red Rock and Hull gets to quiz Paul on the physical effects of oxygen on all The Beatles.  It's possible that Hull heard rumors about Paul being experimented on in an oxygen chamber and wanted, in a round-about way, to get him to comment on it.
 

The second clue about the Lotus bed comes from a travel book about London that Hunter Davies edited  called The New London Spy:  A Discreet Guide to the City's Pleasures copyrighted in 1966 and published in 1967.  Hunter Davies was the author of the official Beatles biography first published in 1968.
In the Specialty Services section of the book, Davies writes the following:
     XZIT
     Should you want Xzit, you must ring HYD 1875.  Wait a minute.  What is Xzit?  Xzit is the trade name of
     a firm with American connections who make refractories.  Coatings for tanks.  Well, it might come in
     handy.

The coatings for tanks that Davies mentions is fireproofing.  Davies might have been trying to be hip and just pull something out of the air to talk about.  But there are suggestions that Paul might have been burned in an hyperbaric oxygen bed accident and oxygen is very flammable.

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