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Former Employee: Ray Did Not Help People Dying in Sweat Lodge

ABC News Exclusive: Former Employee Said the Self-Help Guru Only Watched as People Died

ABC News Good Morning America/December 9, 2009

By Dan Harris

Self-help guru James Arthur Ray did nothing to help the people who had collapsed inside his Sedona, Arizona, sweat lodge two months ago in an incident that killed three people, according to Melinda Martin, a former employee.

"He came out and he stretched his arms up and everybody hosed him off and he's like, 'Hey thanks!'... and it really stopped me in my tracks. I just stopped, and I said, 'How can you walk out of there with all these people down, and they're, they just looked near death, and you guys can walk out there looking like you just spent the day in the spa,'" Martin said in an exclusive interview with ABC News.

Fire-heated rocks filled the 400-square-foot makeshift tent with steam while more than 60 participants crammed inside while Ray led them in a spiritual ceremony. The guests paid nearly $10,000 to spend the week with Ray at the retreat.

Martin said that while people were being dragged out from the tent in front of him, Ray neither stopped the ceremony nor helped afterward as Martin performed CPR on the dying.

"And I look up, and he's standing right over my head, watching. He's watching from a standing position. He didn't offer to help. He didn't say anything, nothing at all," Martin said, adding that she did not see Ray help anyone.

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