another life lost. its the first one i have seen go though. like im the one who noticed she wasnt breathing. although id only met her 5 times i still thaught id feel a little more maybe it hasnt hit me yet. Maybe there will come a time when the jokes my gf and i make in really bad taste will not be funny and perhaps ill cry for this girl. i went over to my neighbours house very early in the am on saturday id gone to fix him up for some up i scored earlier he answered the door in his usual suspect way ; just a little at first his little beady eyes peer through at me look me up and down and then he procedes to remove the baracades of blankets and chairs that he has placed up against the door which i suspect he thinks keeps the noise from travelling.... some one should really let on that it does jack shit. as i walk in i can smell the familiar white ox smell(a sure sign someones done a bit of time and i notice shelly a girl id met 5 or so times snoozing on the couch. i take a seat on a leather bar stool around the kitchen bench where it seems that he is posted and we make small talk for about 15 min then ilooked over to see shelly with her head tilted back and thaught that cant be comfortable i noticed then that sean was bit dopey ...hed been on the smack, it was always obvious... things slowed down to about half pace.... i glanced at him and then back at her and although ive never been around the down scene it was pretty evident to even me that perhaps this girl was over dosing is she ok i said tto sean he goes yeah shes just sleeping and he got up and tried to wake her no response he put his hand to her mouth and could feel she wasnt breathing i ran next door to grab my gf who was a nurse ' hurry a girl has overdosed shes not breathing.." we both ran back by this stage he was lifting her from the couch he placed her on the floor and continued trying to get a response. her pants were around her ankles and you could see track marks all over her thighs were shes been injecting my gf said we have to do cpr but sean said shed done this before once or twice and he just had to get her in the shower he picked her up and carried her to the bathroom she started pissing herself i knew it was a bad sign. in the bathroom he layed her down and told me to put the cold water on her i had heard somewhere that this can cause shock so i started with luke warm ... her fingerss were going so purple he started cpr and kept telling us not to call an ambulance but i knew we had to i called my gf into the kitchen and told her to go outside and call one she returned talking to the operater and told us paramedics were on their way and she stayed on the line to help count through the cpr .they kept doing that till 15 mins later when ambos arrived. they then done everything they could for another 25 mins adrenalin and god knows what else she died. they said that they estimated time of death to have been an hour ago meaning she was dead when i had gotten there... and nobody noticed. i wonder if i hadnt of come how long would she have been left 'sleeping' . it hasnt quite hit me yet i dont know if it willid never seen a dead body before not even at funerals so i was expecting it to have a bigger impact on me than it has im not sure if its coz ive always had this dislike for the drug and what it does to ppl or why i dont really feel anything toward what happened. next morning the police interviewed us seperatly for an hour and a half each.. we havent heard anything back yet. the house was declared a crime scene and an officer was positioned at the front door. the coroners car stayed out front of my building untill lunch time that day when they finally closed the crime scene and took her body away. she had just turned 40 the day before was her birthday all her presents (2) where wrapped still on the couch beside her.
"Overdoses are not just something that happens to young drug users. Australian Bureau of Statistics data provided to the Penington Institute (not available online at the time of publication) shows the number of middle-aged women dying from accidental overdose has more than doubled in a decade. Indeed, women aged between 30 and 50 are now almost four times more likely to die of an unintended overdose than in a car accident.
Heroin used to be the main cause of overdose during the late 1990s, but by 2007–08 prescription opioids accounted for 80% of the overdose cases admitted to hospital."
"2. Snoring can be a sign of overdose
People often die from overdoses after family and friends notice them snoring loudly and leave them to “sleep it off”. The unusual snoring noise characteristic of an overdose results from a reduction in the size of the airway and in the volume of air able to move in and out of the lungs with each breath.
Heroin and pharmaceutical opioids are depressants, so they relax the bodily processes. This means an overdose will cause breathing to slow. Left untreated, the brain struggles to function because of lack of oxygen, blood pressure decreases and the heart rate slows, ultimately leading to cardiac arrest.
For people who are substance users, snoring is not normal. Rather, it may be a sign of a significant and life-threatening emergency – try to wake the person immediately.
Other signs of an opioid overdose are:
blue lips or fingertips
floppy arms and legs
no response to stimulus
disorientation and
unrousable (can’t be woken up) unconsciousness.
- It can take hours to die from an opioid overdose
Early reports of the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman had a police official saying it was clear the acclaimed actor died of an overdose because he had a needle in his arm. A statement like this can be a little misleading because an overdose from opioids does not cause the user to fall dead on the spot as they suggest.
An overdose death can occur within minutes, but it often takes hours. This leaves a large window of opportunity during which a range of measures can be taken to save that person’s life.
Calling an ambulance is the best thing you can do. Paramedics will have a drug called naloxone, which is a rapidly acting antagonist to heroin and related drugs. It is saving many lives that could be lost to overdose."