Advise Needed

I’m really not sure where to put this topic at, but I need some advice. This weekend over memorial I had gone out with friends out to the lake. Spent 2 nights on the lake swimming, playing games with friends and just chilling out. Saturday night, we had a bon-fire… One of my friends, friends had switched my drink which was a Diet Pepsi, (WOW Exciting)…

Sometime during the early part of the night, In the pop can, it was mixed with as I was told Red Bull and some (high performance drinks)

I had about 5 drinks from the pop can, in matter of 10 minutes, I started to feel like I was burning up, getting tired / sleepy which is an indicator that my glucose levels are on their rise. I had started to feel heart palpitations alittle bit stronger than they have been. (I have always have had heart palpitations) I had reached into my bag to grab my meter and it read 675.

Due to not knowing how much insulin to give due to I’m on U-500 as an emergency injection, I had sent it through the pump. But it wouldn’t have taken effect for awhile… It had kept on saying check for obstruction. Fusterated as I was and getting crabbier

One of my friends had came over to come and get me do do something, he had asked what is happening. I had told him, he had called 911 right away and life flight was sent out with an officer on board.

The police had came by as first responder, while the officer was questioning me, one of my friends friends had walked by and took my pop can. He was asked if it was his, and he said pretty much no, that he wanted to clean up the area. The officer had put it in a bag, given to life flight when I was taken to the ER. There they had analyzed the contents.

The contents of the can were enough to really send my blood sugars well over 900 to 1000 as the doctor had stated in the chart, causing me to go into DKA and coma. My delima right now is I am being asked by the police to press some sever charges against my friends friend. If I don’t, the States Attorney and the police department can over ride me and go ahead in making the charges.

My friend had said he had told him after wards he wanted to have me drink something different than diet drinks and live free. He didn’t know that I was a diabetic till I had pulled out the meter and the pump.

My friend had pretty much said, it’s up to you of what you wanna do, that it was a really dirty trick of him doing this.

This whole thing no only messed up my glucose levels, it had also scared me thinking I was actually have a heart attack, due to the stronger heart palpitations that weren’t going away. – I was told by the police one of charges among 7 of them are going to be felony charge of attempted murder. The felony comes from due to I work for the state government hospital system.

I just need to know, what would you do, how would you handle this? Cause, I’m totally at lost of all of this. I’m not wanting to make enemies cause his friends are my friends also. I have gotten some dirty calls from some of them, and some are advising me to do what I need to do and they will stand behind me. But as I have learned from my mom, a friend will stand beside you and not behind you. Is this one of them that will weed the true from the fake ones out? Just utterly lost…

Just my 2,

I would not press…if the state overrides you so be it…if he did not know you were diabetic and there were no illegal stuff in the can…

First of all, thank goodness you were able to get help and your ok, I cannot fathom someone doing this to anyone let alone a diabetic, and there is no excuse. You mentioned it was a friend of a friend and the test will be if your friend stands with you, if not then he really wasn’t a friend that is the sad truth. You need to go with your gut feeling on this and I really don’t know what to tell you. Was this person trying to murder you? No, but it is no joking matter and somehow that needs to addressed.
Good luck in which path you decide to take.

In my opinion, this was a horrible thing to happen to you, but honestly, it was not attempted murder… it wasn’t malicious or anything. The guy was just uninformed and made a bad choice in getting you to drink something you shouldn’t have. Even if they did press charges, I doubt it would go very far in court. You wouldn’t be testifying against the guy, and in fact, I would just tell the judge, yeah, it was accident but he knows better now and it won’t happen again. I mean, it would have been terrible if something had happened, but it’s still accidental.

I’m surprised your blood sugar went up that fast so quickly. I mean, Red Bull does not have that much carbs in them (maybe 50 or 60 grams total) and if you didn’t even drink an entire can, I’m wondering if maybe something else happened to your insulin. The fact you went into DKA shows you had no insulin in your system at all and that you had several hundred grams of carbohydrates to get that high… Did you have 5 cans of Red Bull or 5 sips of Red Bull? I’m not accusing you of lying, I’m just saying that maybe there was something else going on and the Red Bull just added to it. I’ve had an entire meal and forgotten to bolus and I still never went higher than 500.

Also, sometimes I think doctors overestimate food and what it actually does. I remember watching TV and seeing a doctor on Oprah. There was a guest who had diabetes and the guest was diagnosed with diabetes with a blood sugar of 500. The doctor goes, “I’m surprised you were alive!” Well, I’ve been 500 plenty of times and I’m still alive! I don’t know, sometimes doctors can be really dramatic when they tell you what “could have happened.”

I hate that this happened to you. Hopefully that guy learned a lesson. Unfortunatly it was at your expense. If I were you I wouldn’t press changes, but I would be very very careful about what I was taking in the form of food and drinks from other people. And I would do my best to make sure a majority of the people around me knew about my diabetes.
I am glad that you are okay. If the state decides to press charges (I’m not sure they would have a case though) I would tell them what they wanted to know, but wouldn’t press charges myself. That’s just too much hassle and trouble.

Hello there, I agree with everyone else and think everyone learned a valuable lesson. Unfortunately at your expense but glad to hear you are ok. If the state does press charges I would try to get a hold of whoever is prosecuting and recommed having them do some volunteer work to become better educated friends. This way no harm no foul and everyone comes out smarter. Just my two cents.

Take care,
Mike

I am sorry to disagree with everyone. This was truly not a no harm no foul thing. i would wait to see what all was in the can. If it was truly only sugar and caffeine that is one thing. But if it was something else as well, then i would go with the charges. About 10 years ago, before I was diagnosed someone put something in my drink. Fortunately for me the drink was spilled before it ever got to my mouth. One of my friends was trying hard to get to me before I drank it because she saw this “guy” put something in there and then bring it to me. Later on he put something in another drink and gave it to another woman. He must not have known how much he was using because she died later on that night. People who are in the habit of changing the food or drinks of others without their knowledge do not have their greater good in mind. And this to me is definitely no friend.

It’s different switching a diet soda with a regular soda than it is actually putting a drug in a drink, which is what some men do to women… the woman was probably given too much of a rape drug and died of it. There are a lot of cases of women who are given rape drugs at parties by men. I highly highly doubt that this case involves a rape drug! But if the guy was just being a jackass and switched the drinks on the guy because he was under the impression that a diet soda was a “sissy” drink, then well that’s just dumb and accidental. It doesn’t sound like he was being malicious from the story.

Do you mean 2 hours later or 2 hours earlier? 675 to 88 is a really fast drop… most meters don’t even read that high. Your meter may have given you a false high. I have had my meter read over 200 points higher than what I actually was, so that’s another possibility. Not saying that the guy didn’t switch your drinks which is stupid, I’m just saying your sudden spike is strange and I’m wondering if there wasn’t some kind of technical malfunction.

Oh wow. I’m really glad to hear you are ok, at least physically.

Have you thought about contacting the legal advocacy groups run by the ADA or JDRF? They might be able to help you explain your options, but perhaps more importantly, let you know of other cases where something similar happened and what people decided to do.

If that is an option that interests you, feel free to ping me directly for direct contact information.

Really, best wishes to you as you sort this crappy mess out.
Adam

ps. Another thought; it sounds like your friend is standing by you in this. Perhaps it is worth asking him to act as a filter between you and everyone else who was there at this party? If people are getting angry at you, your friend can run interference and deal with those jerks and let you focus on what you need to do.

Allison and Saundra, you are probably right here. This one harmless act, if gone unpunished, could lead to worse more devious deeds. My friends are goofballs and I wouldn’t put it completely out for them to screw around but they probably wouldn’t have gone to the extreme maybe just replaced the contents of my diet coke with regular coke. Did they comit a felony, attemped murder, I don’t think so. Do they need to be punished, probably. Please keep in mind that the reason we send people to prison is to reform them, unfortunately, our society tries to do this by isolation instead of education. That’s the angle I was hitting, I do think a strong point needs to be made to the individuals one way or the other so this behavior doesn’t harm anyone else in the future.

If it were me, I wouldn’t press charges. If you truly feel he didn’t intend to harm you and it wasn’t malicious, let the state prosecute. You could be a witness FOR him. The state is most likely looking to find someone to blame to get paid for that lovely flight and emergency care… if they can convict him, they can make him pay restitution. As for the friends that stand behind you… your mom is right, real friends are beside you. Good luck.

I really think that… sometimes, even though our actions have hugely unforeseen consequences, that we are ultimately responsible for them, and NEED to be held accountable for them. I remember, not long ago, a group of teenagers removed a STOP sign from an intersection, just for ‘collector’s sake’ and to hang it from their dorm room wall. Unfortunately, that stop sign was direly needed at that intersection, and innocent people got killed because of this… Those kids went to jail… and maybe not for as long as ‘attempted murder,’ but they’re thoughtless actions had some dire consequences for some families. I feel the same way about this… Chadd could have had his entire life be altered by the consequences of Diabetic Ketoacidosis, and he was more than lucky to have such great emergency services. Chadd could have died, and then what do they say to his family? Don’t hold the kids accountable, because they’re just having fun, and playing pranks? I don’t think so… We can’t hold someone accountable, only when someone dies, and then just let them go off without much consequence when only something short of death happens. It’s not fair, and it only sends the message that you can feel free to put things in people’s drinks, or play pranks on them, without care or concern for their health, or who they are. I wouldn’t take this from a friend, much less a friend’s friend…