Russell Miller on David Mayo's Role in Creating NOTs

In August 1978, L. Ron Hubbard suffered a pulmonary embolism that left him temporarily incapacitated.

Quoting from Bare-Faced Messiah:

David Mayo, the senior case supervisor in Clearwater, did not know where he was going or what he had to do. All he was told was that an urgent, top-secret telex had arrived at the CMO instructing him to be on the next flight to Los Angeles.... Mayo was bundled in a third car and blindfolded. He asked what was going on and the driver replied: "We're taking you to LRH. He's sick. Keep the blindfold on until we arrive."

Mayo was dismayed when he was at last ushered into the Commodore's room at Rifle: "He was obviously very ill, lying on his back almost in a coma. He could talk a little, but very slowly and quietly. There was medical equipment all round him, including an electric pulse machine to re-start his heart. Denk [a Scientology doctor] told me that he thought LRH was close to death. He would have moved him into a hospital but he thought the ride in the ambulance might finish him off. I was given his PC folders and told to solve the problem. I started looking through the folders that night and began auditing him next day."

And thus, NOTs--New era dianetics For Operating Thetans--were born.