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Hey, Ho, For the Open Road #1

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Jack makes it on time yet again – wonders will never cease!

This may be the first of a series of car stories –

There are two times in my life when I came close to death, and one happened in the early 1970s. I owned a mark 1 Triumph Spitfire, an open top convertible sports car with (in my case almost literally) a fatal flaw. The early models, like mine, had an unusual rear suspension – a transverse leaf spring with the rear wheels at either end. There were a few cars with this design including the VW Beetle, and Ralph Nader did research and found out that many crashes had resulted. Later models were redesigned!

I was driving from my home city of Dunfermline to the nearby town of Kirkcaldy by way of a narrow and twisty country road via the hamlet of Puddledub. It was autumn and there were lots of leaves on the road. I entered an s-bend with a banking on the opposite side that had rain water running down from a field.

That’s when the rear wheels lost grip and tucked in. The problem with the transverse spring meant that it was now running on the tire walls instead of the tread!

That’s also when my car slid across and up the banking, then turned over and cartwheeled down the road, completely out of control. It went from front to side to back and side and on and on like that. Remember this is an open top car and could have landed either side up. In these early models the rear view mirror was on top of the dash, so every time the car landed on its front my head hit that mirror – I still have the scar.

Another motorist ahead of me in a Jaguar saw the whole thing in his mirror and came back to check on me. I had blood streaming down my face but the Spitfire had landed the right way up and I was alive, so off he drove.

The car was a write off/totaled so I used the insurance money to buy my first MGB.

Before you Bum a Smoke…

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Come all ye people who bum cigarettes, a warning take from Lee:

My friends Lee and Vicki went to a music show in Roanoke. Lee is six years sober from heroin use. Since cigarettes are considered something of a trigger for the old life, he’s not supposed to have them, but Lee took advantage of Vicki nipping off to the toilet. He requested a cigarette from a smoker outside. When Vicki returned and caught him, he didn’t finish.

This may have saved his life.

As she harangued him (all of us who have loved someone with SUD know this is a loving act) Lee said suddenly, “I have to go to the restroom.” A moment later, Vicki heard a ruckus and followed to find Lee unconscious on the ground, surrounded by a bunch of strangers. Four of them had Narcan out, the rest were calling 911 on their cell phones. 

One of the kind strangers administered the anti-overdose drug Narcan as Vicki took Lee’s face in her hands and cajoled, slapped, and screamed him into waking up. He went in and out three times, and registered an incredibly weak pulse when the paramedics arrived. But with the Narcan, he was holding onto consciousness, drenched in sweat, and slowly realizing what had happened.

When the paramedics found that Lee had asked for a cigarette, they exchanged knowing glances, did a couple of checks, and confirmed: the cancer stick had been laced with fentanyl.

“Never, never, take anything from someone you don’t know these days,” the paramedics said, without judgment. “This happens a lot. And we do mean a lot.”

Vicki didn’t really register their warning in the moment. As she says, “I felt so bad for Lee, because being an ex drug addict, his fear and combativeness towards medical responders was triggered and he was panicking. His mind immediately went to law enforcement and I was constantly having to reassure him that this was not that life anymore and he had done nothing wrong.” 

The paramedics were sympathetic to Lee’s PTSD and helped Vicki bundle him into their car to head back to the hotel once they were sure he was going to be okay.

I asked Vicki if she thought the guy who gifted the cigarette had known the fentanyl was in there. It can’t be proven, as he disappeared when the trouble began, but Vicki thought he had looked high, when Lee described which smoker gave him the ill-fated gift. The paramedics were also of the opinion that people tend to sneak their drugs into concerts via cigarettes. One more reason not to ask for one, ever.

“I’m just in shock,” Vicki concludes. “You hear the stories about how easy it is but never picture yourself in a situation where that could happen. It’s unreal. But the availability of Narcan and people who knew how to use it was very very inspiring. And I’m pretty sure it saved Lee’s life.”

Feel free to share this story, and please, please do two things: carry Narcan, and don’t ask strangers for cigarettes, no matter how badly you want one.