Ronnie Thompson (Georgia Politician) - Mental Depression

Mental Depression

In 1972, Thompson was a passenger in a private Piper Comanche airplane. During a downdraft, Thompson's head crashed into the door latch, a concussion resulted, and there was serious internal bleeding. He spent a week in Macon Medical Center. On returning home, he collapsed, possibly a result of powerful medications. A neighbor had allegedly seen him shooting a pistol in his backyard. A woman called a radio talk show and claimed that Thompson had been seen nude in his backyard. Thompson sued the radio station for $2.36 million.

After the collapse at home, Thompson was again hospitalized and was pronounced clinically dead. Physicians revived him, and he lay unconscious for three days. After a ten-day stay, he returned to his office, but was soon rushed to College Street Hospital, a psychiatric facility. Diagnosed with mild depression, Thompson remained in the psychiatric hospital for three weeks and received electroshock treatment. His mental health problems seriously damaged his political career. So did aftereffects of the firefighters' strike, as blue collar white voters, Thompson's traditional base, were generally sympathetic to the firefighters. Rumors circulated that Thompson had been unfaithful to Nita and had been injured, not in the airplane mishap, but by the husband of a mistress. Such rumors, apparently baseless, hurt Thompson among "Bible Belt" fundamentalists. The divorce from Nita made the moralistic, gospel-singing mayor seem hypocritical in the eyes of such voters.