50 years on: Former Greens leader reflects on the day he tried to save Jimi Hendrix

Today marks 50 years since musician Jimi Hendrix died in London.

Former Greens leader Bob Brown was one of the doctors who was at St Mary Abbot’s Hospital when the music icon was rushed into the emergency room.

At the time, Mr Brown was a 25-year-old resident doctor at the hospital.

Press PLAY below for his account of the day.

“Up came an ambulance, and out of it came a stretcher … and on that was poor Jimi Hendrix,” he told Tony Jones, filling in for Neil Mitchell.

“Behind it was his girlfriend trotting along in her high heels. I’ll never forget that. She had this look of helplessness which then spread to the lot of us.

“He was very clearly dead, he had been for some time and there was nothing that could be done to recover him.

“There was a sense of impending dread.”