The dark practices of the ‘Jedi Doctor’, Chris Savage, who is wanted in three countries
A FORMER Australian police officer with no medical training, but claims he’s a “Jedi Doctor” curing autism and cancer, is being investigated in three countries.
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EXCLUSIVE
FORMER Australian police officer Chris Savage, who has no medical training but claims he is the “Jedi Doctor” curing autism and cancer, is now being investiagted by authorities in three countries after his procedures left one man in hospital and another woman in excruciating pain.
A diabetic man he treated in New Zealand is understood to have ended up in emergency and a Melbourne woman he treated at his home has made an official complaint against him.
The Queensland Health Ombudsman is now investigating the complaint by Melbourne woman Rebecca Coombs, who was treated at Mr Savage’s Amamoor home in Queensland.
Medical authorities in New Zealand have put out a public warning against Mr Savage after a diabetic man he treated there with his so-called cure all magnesium IV infusions, ended up in emergency in hospital.
“Hawke’s Bay District Health Board has been informed that Christopher Savage says that he is a doctor and is offering medical treatments in the Napier area. The district health board has referred the matter to police and the Ministry of Health but in the meantime is urging the public not to follow any medical or treatment advice Christopher Savage offers,” the public warning says.
Mr Savage did not comment when contacted by News Corporation yesterday.
The latest developments follow an investigation earlier this year by News Corporation which saw Mr Savage flee Bali, where he was offering the same treatments, after Indonesian authorities also started investigating him.
He has claimed that his intravenous infusions of magnesium and a chemical called DMSO or dimethyl sulfoxide — at a cost of $250 per IV bag — could cure children of autism, cure cancers, blocked and calcified aortas and a range of other ailments. But medical professionals warn that IV infusions of magnesium is only ever used in clinical settings for chronic asthma, pre-eclampsia and life-threatening heart arrhythmia and are would highly dangerous if administered by a non-medical person.
Mr Savage is a prominent anti-vaccination campaigner and one-time One Nation candidate but he has no medical training or registration.
Ms Coombs was treated once at Mr Savage’s Amamoor home in mid-March this year and left after the first treatment despite intending to have two weeks of IV infusions for herself and her 10-year-old son Phoenix.
The Queensland Health Ombudsman has since contacted her to see if she would be willing to give evidence against Savage should any case come to court.
She suffers Tuberous Sclerosis Complex which causes tumours to grow in her body and her son Phoenix has been diagnosed with autism.
A natural therapist, Ms Coombs heard about Mr Savage and in desperation she and her partner Teena decided to try the treatments. At this stage Savage was operating from a clinic in Bali and the family set up a fundraising page to secure enough money. But in the meantime Mr Savage returned from Bali to Queensland so he contacted Ms Coombs and suggested she travel to Queensland.
Because Mr Savage had claimed the Bali treatments were being done in a clinic with a nurse present Ms Coombs assumed it was the same here.
The family arrived at Savage’s home on March 13 and the first IV infusion was done the next day.
Ms Coombs says there was no sterile environment, no nurse, no alcohol wipes and initially he struggled to even insert the needle.
During the procedure Savage insisted that Ms Coombs chew wheatgrass to counteract the effects of the IV. But she claims it was not wheat grass at all but was wild grass picked from his garden and mulched up with a mincer.
Ms Coombs became violently ill with vomiting and sweating and then developed a severe pain in the back of her head.
“Chris said it was my body detoxing from vaccination ingredients and that clearly the ingredients must have been sitting in my brain for a long time for it to be causing this much grief,” Ms Coombs said in her complaint to the Qld Health Ombudsman.
When she insisted on stopping the treatment he continued to push the vaccination argument.
“(He) told us that if we wanted to be cured that I had to continue and that this was the only thing that would save my life.”
Ms Coombs says in her complaint that Savage appeared to be using industrial grade DMSO and not pharmaceutical grade, the ingredients were stored in his dirty laundry, that he was using tap water in the IV instead of saline and IV bags were washed and dried in the dirty bathroom sink
After she told him she was leaving and would not stay for the planned two-week treatment and that her son would not be treated “he spent the evening telling us how much my son and I needed this procedure and that we would without question die without it”.
In a series of messages with Savage before her treatment, obtained by News Corporation, he vowed his treatments would cure her.
“It will totally remove the disease and the conditions that give rise to disease … They call me the Jedi doctor here,” he said in one.
In another he says he has been “healing” people for 22 years and says “if the powers that be new what I was able to do and what I am doing they would close me down”.
Contacted by News Corporation yesterday Mr Savage would not confirm if he was still in New Zealand.
“I have nothing to say about it,” he said in response to questions about the investigations into him.
He also posted several observations on his Facebook page about the case, saying that Ms Coombs was “totally wrong in her summation”.
“I gave her help to heal her son and herself and this is how she repays it,” he told followers.
Originally published as The dark practices of the ‘Jedi Doctor’, Chris Savage, who is wanted in three countries
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