Working on yachts was my occupation, my life for 23 years as a professional chef. At this particular time in my life, I had just lost my identical twin sister September 28 2002 o a pulmonary embolism. It was November 12th and I was despondent, a broken individual, who had contemplated some horrific ideas about taking my own life.  Nothing could bring me back from that point, or so I felt, until I had to come to back to the land of the living. Amy stayed with me after she died. She stayed with me for four months continously by my side, even laying in my same bed and I believe she had a hand in what happened to bring me back from the brink.

The yacht was docked at Fantasy Island in Roatan next to Johnny Carson’s yacht, the Serengeti. It was late and we had just pulled in into harbor. Most of the crew had jumped ship out for a night on the town and Richard and I stayed on board. Around 11 pm, my ex husband starts screaming, holding his head, yelling, “call a doctor, call a doctor.” He is suffering relentless pain. This man had a pain threshold that makes a professional football player with a broken knee cap look like a pansy.

Panicking I frantically search for a cell phone but no signal on mine.  I ran outside looking for the cell phone from the ships agent, thinking it was there and at the same time, crying, I screamed for Amy,  my twin sister pleading with her,  “Amy, “what is wrong with Richard?” She was still there with me, even though she was dead, she was still there. She replied as someone standing next to me would talk to me in a normal calm voice.  “Beth, Richard has just had a brain hemorrage. You need to find the phone and call a doctor. He will be okay, just call for a doctor.” The cigarette I lit was shaking violently. There was the cell phone from the ships agent on the boat deck.

I dialed the agents number. He answered. I said, ” I need a doctor at the yacht immediately as fast he can get here, ambulance anything.”

He asked, ” what is wrong with the Captain.”

I said, “He just had a brain hemorrage.”

Within a few minutes Dr. Noel Brito, a dive doctor  shows up,  running onboard with his bag and injected Richard with codeine to bring his blood pressure down. It was 244 over 188.

It took four days to get a jet in to medivac him out to Miami to Mount Sinai  because of the rainy season but before he left, the neurosurgeon and Dr. Brito confirmed that he did indeed have a sub arrachnoid brain hemorrage with a graphic image from the MRI,. We had to travel by car and as scary as it sounds, and was, by an unpressurized plane to the capital of Honduras.

Then I was asked the question by both doctors with Richard laying there, ” How did you know what happened to Richard? How did you know what to tell Dr. Brito on the phone what was wrong with the Captain.?

I said quite matter of frankly, “Amy told me.”

I believe that my twin sister saw a need to step in, to help me come back from a very dark place by placing me back into the land of the living and to stop grieving as she was there with me, as she has been since.