My mate saved me after I felt needle in shoulder..
A WOMAN spiked with a needle on a night out has told how her pal saved her from evil predators.
Landscape designer Rebecca Derbyshire was injected with an unknown drug while on a hen do in Liverpool.
The 26-year-old, from Stoke-ontrent, Staffs, said: “I felt something sharp go into my shoulder. It was a really unusual sensation.
“I turned around to my friend and said, ‘I think I’ve just been injected’. She looked at my arm and said there was a needle mark and we looked around trying to see who might have done it.
“It doesn’t bear thinking about what could have happened if my friend hadn’t been there.
“I think I was targeted when she had stepped away and I was on my own at the bar, making me more vulnerable. Most of my friends had already headed home but thankfully we stuck together.”
Rebecca and her friend, who were drinking in the Rubber Soul bar in the city centre on September 25, went straight back to their hotel as she began to feel sick and drowsy.
She said: “I was mainly a bit fuzzy, confused and quite shook up, feeling a bit nauseous and dizzy.” She later had a medical check-up, including HIV and hepatitis tests.
Doctors told Rebecca that whoever injected her did not know what they were doing because they missed her blood stream.
She said: “The doctors think it was probably muscle relaxants which could have temporarily paralysed me, but we will never really know until we find out who did it.”
It was only this week after seeing other victims of needle spiking come forward that Rebecca reported her ordeal to police.
Sharp
Nationwide, cops have reported 24 needle spiking attacks in the past two months and 140 cases of drink spiking.
Nottinghamshire police have received 14 reports this month of people being spiked by something sharp. That includes three within just 24 hours this week.
It coincides with an overall rise in reports of spiking using both needles and drinks this month.
Rebecca said: “Afterwards I thought I was being paranoid and going mad, and I tried to put it to the back of my mind.
“I think there was an assumption it was just students, but my story shows anyone considered to be an easy target can be attacked.”
Two men in Nottingham and one in Lincoln were detained in connection with spiking attacks last weekend.
An 18 and 19-yearold remain in custody in Nottingham on suspicion of conspiracy to administer poison.
It is still unknown exactly what drug is being used to spike victims. Jo Cox-brown, founder of Night Time Economy, delivered antidrink spiking training on Friday to Nottingham venues.
She said it is crucial to report a spiking to police as soon as possible because date-rape drugs like rohypnol and GHB leave the system within 12 hours.
She said: “The earlier you report it, the more likely the perpetrators can be found immediately.”
Home Secretary Priti Patel has ordered police to urgently investigate the rise of spiking.
More than 160,000 people have signed a petition to make it a legal requirement for nightclubs to thoroughly search guests on entry.
Last night the Rubber Soul bar declined to comment.
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