DOSE:

Inhalants

BODY WEIGHT:

110 kg

[Erowid Note: Unconfirmed Death Report. This report of a death was submitted with no verifiable details, no contact information, and no way to confirm any element of it. Erowid is choosing to publish this report to invite public comment and to allow anyone who knows about this event to submit details which we can verify. Neither this report nor any report of a death should be considered reliable -- nor much weight given to it -- without details that can be verified through hospitals, police reports, family members, or news reports. If you have information about this or other deaths directly resulting from the use of any psychoactive substance we cover, please contact sage at erowid.org.]

[Erowid Note: Our understanding of the literature is that there is no such thing as safe recreational use of volatile solvents, aerosols and other street inhalants : their psychoactive effects are inseparable from nerve and organ damage. We have chosen to include these reports to help document the real world use of inhalants, but their inclusion is not intended to imply that they are anything but dangerous.]

As my friend isn't here anymore to tell his tale I will tell it for him.

He was a heavy user of the stuff. I was at his place for a two-week vacation, and he used it off and on up to several times a day. He knew the stuff is bad, and even complained that the pharmacist providing him with his fix kept stocking the cans. I told him: 'Hey, you always go there to buy it!'.

I always hated him huffing it. It was very noisy, the groaning and coughing just sounded awful. I told him so, but he ignored it. Then he came with the brilliant idea to increase his sensation even more by combining huffing with laying in a so-called sarcophagus, a foam rubber coffin-like contraption lined with black rubber and fitted with zippers to provide the 'total enclosure' he so coveted. I said to him that he shouldn't do it that way, but he did it anyway. I also said that I would not check on him, but he ignored that too.

After the loud groaning noises he quieted down, and after half an hour I checked on him nonetheless. He was breathing, like he always does when high. I left him then, and after returning some 20 minutes later I didn't hear any breathing anymore. I opened the zippers, pulled back the heavy rubber and saw him with foam coming out of his mouth. I knew he was dead. I tried to get him out, failed, and started to reanimate him while pushing aside the rubber. The air I breathed into him came out with a gurgling sound. I had tried to reanimate a dead body.

I dialled 1-1-2, the European version of 9-1-1. The ambulance was quick to arrive. I showed the body I was still reanimating. Another ambulance arrived. I was sent out of the room as the five people working moved the furniture away and extracted my dead friend from the sarcophagus. I heard the beeps of the reanimation machine. It did not give shocks so I now knew for sure he was dead. I called my girlfriend who couldn't believe it. The medic came from the room and told me he was dead. I called his Mother who wanted to drive over right away. Later I got a call from her sister in law that her brother would drive her to the house, some 600km away.

The medics left and a detective from the police took me aside and asked what had happened. I gave a true account of what he had done. He wrote everything down, like they do. I showed him the can which was put into a bag. He asked how it worked. I told him he would spray onto a towel and sniff it. He pointed at a towel on the floor but I told him it was still in the coffin. It was extracted and also put into a bag. A rookie cop also asked questions. I ignored him. I tried to call my Mom but she wasn't home. I called a colleague to ask advice. He was shocked about what happened.

Eventually workers from the morgue arrived, and tried to lift the heavy body into their coffin. They dropped the body because they were clumsy. The body was taken away and I was left alone in the house, far away from home. I watched TV all night but it didn't really register. Then I tried to sleep which of course I couldn't. Then, in the middle of the night his Mother arrived and I prepared a place to sleep for them. The next morning I got a train ticket and left.

I think he even enjoyed it. I feel like he floated away on a cloud of chloroethane. He looked peaceful when I found him, even with the froth around his mouth. They haven't released the body yet, now for four days pending autopsy, but they let his Mother wish him farewell. For me the last few days were hell but for his Mother it is infinitely worse. She's lost everyone now.

Exp Year: 2008	ExpID: 74418
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Feb 4, 2011	Views: 13,066
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Inhalants (29) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Second Hand Report (42), Train Wrecks & Trip Disasters (7)