CHANHASSEN, Minn. — A doctor who specializes in helping people addicted to pain medication was preparing to attempt to treat Prince when the music star was found dead in an elevator on the first floor of his sprawling estate here last month, according to a lawyer representing the doctor.
The doctor, Howard Kornfeld, who runs a treatment center in California, rushed his son on a redeye flight to meet with Prince here to discuss a treatment plan after the musician's representatives said that he needed urgent medical attention, William J. Mauzy, a lawyer for the Kornfeld family, said during a news conference outside his Minneapolis office on Wednesday afternoon.
When the son, Andrew Kornfeld, who works with his father but is not a doctor, arrived in this Minneapolis suburb the next morning, he was among those who found Prince lifeless in the elevator and called 911, Mauzy said.
The news that Prince's representatives sought to get him treatment — first reported by The Minneapolis Star Tribune — comes amid a police investigation that is examining the role that prescription opioids might have played in the death. It is also the clearest indication yet of the extent to which Prince struggled to control the chronic pain in his hips and other parts of his body caused by years of taxing performances.
Jason Kamerud, chief deputy at the Carver County Sheriff's Office, which is investigating the death, said in a recent interview that investigators were looking into, among other things, whether Prince may have overdosed on painkillers at his residence. Kamerud declined Wednesday to comment on Mauzy's statements.
For as public a figure as he was, Prince carefully tended to every detail of his image. By most accounts, he led a particularly clean and healthy lifestyle. He ate vegan, not allowing meat to even be present in his home or in venues where he played. He eschewed parts of the rock star lifestyle — prohibiting anyone from consuming marijuana or alcohol when on tour with him.
But several people close to him say he quietly struggled with physical and emotional distress, especially in the final months of his life. He canceled several shows because of illness during his final weeks alive. He did not always have his typical sparkle in his eyes.
"Around the mid-2000s, we were aware that he had a hip injury that bothered him," said Dustin Meyer, 39, who had been working as a DJ for Prince since about 1997. "We knew that he was dealing with pain. It was around the time that he stopped doing splits."
Prince had hip surgery in the mid-2000s and was prescribed pain medication by the surgeon, according to a person who worked with the musician and requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.
The individual added that Prince had been suffering from pain for some time before the operation and had also been taking painkillers during that period.
Mauzy said it was Andrew Kornfeld who actually called authorities to report that Prince had been found in the elevator. The account matches the disorientation of the caller, as captured in a recording of the 911 call; the individual did not seem to know where Prince's house was and suggested it was in Minneapolis.
"The people are just distraught," the caller said, according to the transcript. "We're in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and we are at the home of Prince."
The younger Kornfeld was sent to Prince's Paisley Park estate here to try to get the musician's condition stabilized and to persuade him to go to his father's treatment facility in Mill Valley, California. Howard Kornfeld had contacted a doctor in the Minneapolis area who had cleared his schedule on the morning of April 21 so that he could examine Prince and make sure that his condition was stabilized, Mauzy said.
Howard Kornfeld, Mauzy said, "felt it was a lifesaving mission."