- Apnea (not breathing)
- Pinpoint pupils
- Ice in the crotch
The first two make pharmaceutical sense. Opiates make you stop breathing and squeeze your pupils into tiny black dots. It's the third sign that has baffled paramedics for decades.
Ice down the pants.
Imagine: junkie shoots up with friends. Friends notice (after an unknown duration) that junkie isn't breathing. Friends attempt to wake junkie to no avail. Friends run to the ice machine in the motel hallway and dump the whole bucket down junkie's Wranglers. Junkie is still heading for the light. Friends call 911, gather up all the drugs and cash -- including junkie's wallet -- and skedaddle before the fuzz gets there.
We show up to find junkie lying on the bed, sweating profusely, blue lips, arms outstretched like Ted Neeley, cubes in his drawers and wallet lying open on the nightstand entirely devoid of any founding fathers. In no way, shape or form will we find any illegal substances on the premises. The fuzz, by the way, couldn't care less.
This presentation results in almost every paramedic I know shaking his or her noggin wondering how professional heroin users like this guy and his acquaintances haven't figured out by now that the only thing that's gonna wake him up is Narcan, a magic little concoction we paramedics carry to wake up junkies. It's like the heroin antidote and it's only available by special delivery.
Don't these guys get that the ice trick doesn't wake the dead?
The concept is solid, I mean a Big Gulp on the twig and berries should really give you enough of a jolt to come back from the edge of the abyss. It's like a convenience store defibrillator.
CLEAR! Jamba Juice all over your Fruit of the Looms -- ZAP!
So we, the self-righteous paramedics who obviously know how futile ice in the pants is, continue to shake our collective heads as we prepare our Elixir of Life and mainline it directly into our junkie's last remaining vein, smugly grinning as he rolls over and tosses lunch all over the motel room floor from his instant heroin withdrawals. The only problem with this line of thinking is that the junkies are still using ice. You'd think by now they'd have noticed they were still calling 911 and leaving Bubba for the cops to find even after dumping their smoothies down his tighty-whities.
Unless they're not. Maybe -- just maybe -- this ice trick works better than we sheltered, non-IV-drug-using paramedics realize. Maybe this is the ultimate junkie home remedy, and only when a deep freeze to the nether regions doesn't bring Bubba back from the brink do his junkie friends decide to jump ship and call out the troops.
Maybe. It. Works.
Maybe there are junkies overdosing three or four times as often as we think they are. Maybe overdosing is like the choking game, a way to play with fire and only when you get burned do your best friends make off with all your money and drugs and leave you to wonder how you got in this motel room with a rubber tube in your nose, puking your guts up, surrounded by firefighters and a paramedic with a Cheshire Cat grin.
The next time I find a heroin overdose patient with ice down his pants, I'll know that indeed his friends did everything they could before they called an ambulance -- and made off with his unemployment check.
U really need to change professions this is a very disgusting post the way you are just calling some people junkies and unemployed you have no idea of someone else's life or what they're going through you are one surgery away one injury anything away from being addicted to pain pills how would you feel if that was your brother Mother sister wife laying there dying and someone calling them a junkie like you are to these people that you are supposed to be trying to save you really are a heartless person and yes I'm assuming that you think I'm a junkie because I am taking that for these people absolutely I've struggled with pain pill addiction I broke a rib and I had back surgery it literally takes 7 days for your body to be addicted to a medication that you take 7 to 14 days and then when you don't have it you are deathly sick like you have the flu times 10000 you have no idea what it's like and you have no right to judge others that is God's job there buddy you really should reward this post yeah they may have ice down their pants these people are trying to do everything they can to say their friend running off and leaving them still in their wallet all that yes that's not right absolutely should call the police but in the meantime you just now watching your friend died of course you're going to try to do anything that you can this is a very disgusting post to me you have no right you do not know that person's life you are sitting here calling a junkie 10000 times in a couple of paragraphs it really is disgusting it makes you sound like an a****** you have no right to do this I would really hate for you to be my paramedic and I'll tell you buddy I work every day 6 days a week there are Judges lawyers doctors whoever that have opiate addictions I promise you just because you don't know about it doesn't mean it's not real how would you feel if that was your family member laying there dying and then you read a post of being called a junkie $10,000 it really is a disgusting post to me I'm sorry my opinion probably isn't nothing to you well I'm assuming that it is nothing to you because as I said I have had a pain pill addiction that I have overcome thank God but these people did not wake up and say oh I want to grow up and be a junkie sometimes it happens and trust me it's not a life anybody wants to live I promise you that but when you wake up and you are so sick that you can barely get out of bed because you do not have a medication you have to go and get that medication so you can function and trust me we hate this cycle and we would do anything to escape it that's why we going to get help if we make it that far and do not die not only the physical part of the addiction but the mental Park is awful too anyway like I said you could be your mother wife brother sister whoever laying there needing help and you would not appreciate it if you seen a post of someone being called a junkie 10,000 times I know it's just my opinion means nothing to you but you really should think about the way you are treating people that struggle with something that they I promise you don't want to be I wouldn't wish this disease on anyone but you have a nice day there buddy hopefully you don't run into any junkies today at work but if you happen to try to have a heart cuz you have no idea what the next person is going through have a good day
ReplyDeleteWell said. I completely agree.
DeleteU really need to change professions this is a very disgusting post the way you are just calling some people junkies and unemployed you have no idea of someone else's life or what they're going through you are one surgery away one injury anything away from being addicted to pain pills how would you feel if that was your brother Mother sister wife laying there dying and someone calling them a junkie like you are to these people that you are supposed to be trying to save you really are a heartless person and yes I'm assuming that you think I'm a junkie because I am taking that for these people absolutely I've struggled with pain pill addiction I broke a rib and I had back surgery it literally takes 7 days for your body to be addicted to a medication that you take 7 to 14 days and then when you don't have it you are deathly sick like you have the flu times 10000 you have no idea what it's like and you have no right to judge others that is God's job there buddy you really should reward this post yeah they may have ice down their pants these people are trying to do everything they can to say their friend running off and leaving them still in their wallet all that yes that's not right absolutely should call the police but in the meantime you just now watching your friend died of course you're going to try to do anything that you can this is a very disgusting post to me you have no right you do not know that person's life you are sitting here calling a junkie 10000 times in a couple of paragraphs it really is disgusting it makes you sound like an a****** you have no right to do this I would really hate for you to be my paramedic and I'll tell you buddy I work every day 6 days a week there are Judges lawyers doctors whoever that have opiate addictions I promise you just because you don't know about it doesn't mean it's not real how would you feel if that was your family member laying there dying and then you read a post of being called a junkie $10,000 it really is a disgusting post to me I'm sorry my opinion probably isn't nothing to you well I'm assuming that it is nothing to you because as I said I have had a pain pill addiction that I have overcome thank God but these people did not wake up and say oh I want to grow up and be a junkie sometimes it happens and trust me it's not a life anybody wants to live I promise you that but when you wake up and you are so sick that you can barely get out of bed because you do not have a medication you have to go and get that medication so you can function and trust me we hate this cycle and we would do anything to escape it that's why we going to get help if we make it that far and do not die not only the physical part of the addiction but the mental Park is awful too anyway like I said you could be your mother wife brother sister whoever laying there needing help and you would not appreciate it if you seen a post of someone being called a junkie 10,000 times I know it's just my opinion means nothing to you but you really should think about the way you are treating people that struggle with something that they I promise you don't want to be I wouldn't wish this disease on anyone but you have a nice day there buddy hopefully you don't run into any junkies today at work but if you happen to try to have a heart cuz you have no idea what the next person is going through have a good day
ReplyDeleteU really need to change professions this is a very disgusting post the way you are just calling some people junkies and unemployed you have no idea of someone else's life or what they're going through you are one surgery away one injury anything away from being addicted to pain pills how would you feel if that was your brother Mother sister wife laying there dying and someone calling them a junkie like you are to these people that you are supposed to be trying to save you really are a heartless person and yes I'm assuming that you think I'm a junkie because I am taking that for these people absolutely I've struggled with pain pill addiction I broke a rib and I had back surgery it literally takes 7 days for your body to be addicted to a medication that you take 7 to 14 days and then when you don't have it you are deathly sick like you have the flu times 10000 you have no idea what it's like and you have no right to judge others that is God's job there buddy you really should reward this post yeah they may have ice down their pants these people are trying to do everything they can to say their friend running off and leaving them still in their wallet all that yes that's not right absolutely should call the police but in the meantime you just now watching your friend died of course you're going to try to do anything that you can this is a very disgusting post to me you have no right you do not know that person's life you are sitting here calling a junkie 10000 times in a couple of paragraphs it really is disgusting it makes you sound like an a****** you have no right to do this I would really hate for you to be my paramedic and I'll tell you buddy I work every day 6 days a week there are Judges lawyers doctors whoever that have opiate addictions I promise you just because you don't know about it doesn't mean it's not real how would you feel if that was your family member laying there dying and then you read a post of being called a junkie $10,000 it really is a disgusting post to me I'm sorry my opinion probably isn't nothing to you well I'm assuming that it is nothing to you because as I said I have had a pain pill addiction that I have overcome thank God but these people did not wake up and say oh I want to grow up and be a junkie sometimes it happens and trust me it's not a life anybody wants to live I promise you that but when you wake up and you are so sick that you can barely get out of bed because you do not have a medication you have to go and get that medication so you can function and trust me we hate this cycle and we would do anything to escape it that's why we going to get help if we make it that far and do not die not only the physical part of the addiction but the mental Park is awful too anyway like I said you could be your mother wife brother sister whoever laying there needing help and you would not appreciate it if you seen a post of someone being called a junkie 10,000 times I know it's just my opinion means nothing to you but you really should think about the way you are treating people that struggle with something that they I promise you don't want to be I wouldn't wish this disease on anyone but you have a nice day there buddy hopefully you don't run into any junkies today at work but if you happen to try to have a heart cuz you have no idea what the next person is going through have a good day
ReplyDelete