‘Kids playing Russian roulette with drugs..’
Medic’s warning after boy, 15, who took ecstasy is found unconscious
A DOCTOR who treated a teenager who fell unconscious after taking drugs has warned kids are playing “Russian roulette at its worst”.
The medic attended the scene in Co Cork on Saturday after a group of teens were said to have consumed a substance believed to be ecstasy.
The 15-year-old boy was later found in an unresponsive state.
The West Cork Rapid Response posted on Facebook: “Another drugfuelled night out in Clonakilty using up valuable emergency service resources.” It urged parents to speak with their children about drug and alcohol use.
Dr Jason van der Velde, who attended to the teen, told Patricia Messinger on C103 Cork Radio yesterday: “These drugs are being cut up in these areas and divvied up for onward sale.
“You think of all the ways you are putting yourself at risk by taking some unknown tablet or liquid. It’s just craziness. It’s Russian roulette at its worst.”
The doc, who had to contact the schoolboy’s parents, said: “The first call was to an unconscious 15-year-old. Really that kind of set in trend what we found.
“You expect to find somebody out of their head on drink but there was absolutely not a sausage of evidence this child had taken any alcohol whatsoever.
“He was vomiting, spitting at us and behaving irrationally. And there wasn’t a smell of alcohol.
“After quizzing one of them in depth Ecstasy tablets it kind of transpired they had taken ecstasy, what they thought was ecstasy.
“You can’t ever know what these kids are taking. Certainly the behaviour was not that of someone who had taken a pure form of ecstasy.”
The GP added in a lot of cases parents aren’t aware their kids are taking drugs.
Dr van der Velde said: “I see a growing trend here. I don’t have the answers and I’m just like everybody else.
“I’m a parent of five children and I worry about them growing up and what they’re going to get into.”