Students left fighting for lives
Parents in bedside vigils after overdoses
UP to five Gold Coast students were understood to be fighting for their lives in intensive care last night after a schoolyard drug overdose.
Seven teenagers from prestigious Saint Stephen’s College were rushed to hospital earlier yesterday afternoon after slipping in and out of consciousness from swallowing what was believed to be a Russian designer drug.
At deadline, parents were last night conducting bedside vigils at Gold Coast University Hospital where someone close to the incident said five remained in a critical condition in the Intensive Care Unit.
Two others were believed to be serious or stable.
The students, aged 15 and 14, are in Year 10 and had filmed themselves ingesting the substance at school before sending footage off via social media.
A source told the Bulletin Russian designer drug phenibut – a relaxant with similar effects to Fantasy or GHB – was believed to be the cause.
“That is what they are saying it is,” said the source, of the potentially toxic substance which is readily available online. “Obviously someone has brought it into the school.”
Emergency services were first called to the Coomera college grounds at 12.48pm after the Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) were alerted to three students “on the verge of passing out”.
A QAS spokesman said paramedics on the scene called for reinforcements when four more students presented with similar symptoms.
Six ambulances, three critical care QAS units and a fleet of police descended on the school, shocking some oblivious parents arriving after 3pm to pick up kids.
Detectives have seized mobile phones and “electronic devices” as part of the investigation, a Queensland Police Service statement said last night.
Two crime scenes were set up at the school with the Coomera Criminal Investigation Branch and Child Protection Investigation Unit involved. Police continue to investigate the source of the drugs and were talking to “several students”.
Visibly upset College principal Dr Jamie Dorrington told media about 4pm his primary concern was the students and he would be joining their parents at hospital.
He later urged parents to ensure any of their children who received video footage of the incident did not share it.
“This is not a request from my office but from the Queensland Police Service. If your child receives any messages or film footage or audio files relating to today’s incident they must not forward to any other person,” he wrote.
Yesterday afternoon, Queensland Ambulance Service operations supervisor Pat Berry said it appeared the Year 10 boys had taken drugs and “we are leaning toward an overdose”. “It would appear from the initial response it is an overdose,” he said.
“I must applaud the response of the school to identify these children were deteriorating.”
The boys were all falling in and out of consciousness when paramedics arrived at the Reserve Road scene.
Medics are awaiting the results of toxicology reports to determine exactly what the students took and hope to have test results by today.
Queensland police Acting Inspector Tony Wormald, speaking yesterday afternoon, said while unclear what the substance was it was clearly “dangerous”.
“They have taken something they shouldn’t have.”
Act. Insp. Wormald said it was too early to say whether charges would be laid.
“We are more concerned with where they got the drugs from and why they’ve taken it. And hopefully everybody pulls through safely.”
He could not rule out the possibility that the drugs ingested might have been bought off the internet and said whoever supplied them could face “very serious charges”.
“We’re taking it very seriously. You just don’t know what it is,” he said.
“People decide to take drugs with tragic consequences. The taking of illicit drugs seems to be very prevalent at the moment.
“And you just don’t know what it is. People give you something, you don’t know what it is and you still take it with sometimes tragic consequences.”
A student at the school yesterday said: “The Year 10s were just doing some stupid stuff.”
A police statement last night said: “All illicit drugs are dangerous regardless how they are sold or what you’ve been told.”