Spirit Airlines Capt and wife found dead Thur AM

I don't feel like googling, but what is fentanyl ?
 
Got to wonder whether they came into some fenta and decided to experiment with it. Not that common as a drug of abuse (at least intentionally, a lot of heroin these days is laced with fenta derivatives).
 
eman1200 said:
I don't feel like googling, but what is fentanyl ?
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Very potent pain killer. Mostly used intravenously during surgical procedures. Also available as a patch which is absorbed through the skin for the treatment of severe pain. It's basically synthetic heroin, just 30-100x more potent. During procedures you give the stuff in doses measured in micrograms and it can still cause someone to stop breathing.
 
If the article is correct... another drug death.

The amount of heroin use in Ohio is staggering. When I lived there it was estimated that one in eight semi trucks going down the highway was filled with drugs. When our son was born he had to be in the NICU for a couple days. The other baby in there was one born addicted to heroin.

People want to OD and off themselves, that's their business. When you have impacts on kids like that, it makes me incredibly angry.

eman1200 said:
I don't feel like googling, but what is fentanyl ?
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Essentially synthetic heroin, much more potent.
 
weilke said:
Very potent pain killer. Mostly used intraveneously during surgical procedures. Also available as a patch
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They gave me this in a patch and a sucker. The problem with the patch, if you get it warm or you get hot it releases more of this into your blood then it should and you OD. This happened to me once. I was driving when it happened. I knew something was up and pulled over then started ODing. People saw this and called the police. When the police saw I was wearing or using these patches, the police would not touch me and let my wife come get me. They did not want me OD'ing on them and then they be held accountable. Amazing I lived.
 
I would say this was not being used to control pain by these two.
 
1600vw said:
They gave me this in a patch and a sucker. The problem with the patch, if you get it warm or you get hot it releases more of this into your blood then it should and you OD. This happened to me once. I was driving when it happened. I knew something was up and pulled over then started ODing. People saw this and called the police. When the police saw I was wearing or using these patches, the police would not touch me and let my wife come get me. They did not want me OD'ing on them and then they be held accountable. Amazing I lived.
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Yup, very strong stuff and the margin between pain-free and asleep isn't all that wide. A patient in whose care I was peripherally involved in decided to lick her fentanyl patch. Not a good idea.
 
What I found when taking things like this for pain. I would start to feel better and I am not one to sit. I would then get up and do things. Things I thought I could do but in reality if I was not masking the pain with these drugs I would not be doing. Then when the pain meds wear off, I now needed more then the first dose for now I am in more pain then before. I would take more pain meds, then do more, then take more, then do more. A vicious circle. What I found, manage my pain by what I do. If I do anything I hurt and hurt really bad. So I try to do nothing so I will be able to walk up right a little longer.
 
weilke said:
Got to wonder whether they came into some fenta and decided to experiment with it. Not that common as a drug of abuse (at least intentionally, a lot of heroin these days is laced with fenta derivatives).
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No one "comes into fentanyl and decides to experiment" dude...c'mon now, lets call a spade a spade...they are (were) heroin addicts. Note the article said drug paraphernalia was on scene.
 
When they took me off this cold turkey they told me I had to go into rehab. They said it could kill me if I did not. Scared the Hel# out of me. I was on this drug for over 5 years. I had no with draws at all and I did not go through rehab. No cold sweats or anything. I am so glad those years are so behind me. Never again will I use those drugs. if I need a drug that strong I will go into the hospital and they can give it to me and let me sleep. I have had to do this a couple times.
 
Hmmm
I use fentanyl on a daily basis in my work. It is one of the safest drugs I have available with the caveat that it will cause respiratory arrest in relatively modest doses which must be managed. it is a narcotic derivative of morphine and about 50 times more potent than morphine. There are also fentanyl relatives much much stronger than fentanyl.
I hear that fentanyl is becoming a street drug which is very concerning due to the drugs ability to cause respiratory arrest leading to death if untreated within minutes.
 
tawood said:
No one "comes into fentanyl and decides to experiment" dude...c'mon now, lets call a spade a spade...they are (were) heroin addicts. Note the article said drug paraphernalia was on scene.
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Not necessarily so. 'drug paraphernalia' could have just been the syringes and tourniquets used to inject whatever they had on hand.

Fentanyl is used in hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers and doctors offfices. Even with good inventory controls and 'four eyes' rules, you occasionally have diversion of the substance by staff. Fentanyl is short acting and washes out of your system very quickly. You could inject a dose of fenta today and pee a clean urine drug screen tomorrow. The impression that it is 'clean' and doesnt come with the same risks as heroin sometimes causes people who are otherwise not addicts to play around with it. During the time I was a resident, several people at the different hospitals I came through died from fenta overdoses. That was before the current 'heroin epidemic' and none of them were heroin addicts.
 
weilke said:
Not necessarily so. 'drug paraphernalia' could have just been the syringes and tourniquets used to inject whatever they had on hand.

Fentanyl is used in hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers and doctors offfices. Even with good inventory controls and 'four eyes' rules, you occasionally have diversion of the substance by staff. Fentanyl is short acting and washes out of your system very quickly. You could inject a dose of fenta today and pee a clean urine drug screen tomorrow. The impression that it is 'clean' and doesnt come with the same risks as heroin sometimes causes people who are otherwise not addicts to play around with it. During the time I was a resident, several people at the different hospitals I came through died from fenta overdoses. That was before the current 'heroin epidemic' and none of them were heroin addicts.
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I have certainly seen impressions that because a drug is something used in hospitals it is safe. Of course it's like boost - some boost is safe, too much will blow up your engine, and you need to know what you're doing to know where that line is.

I guess the "don't do drugs" campaigns when I was a kid worked on me. I've never understood why someone would think using a highly potent narcotic for recreation is a good idea. I know you do have cases where someone has an injury and gets addicted inadvertently following prescriptions for a legitimate issue, and that's different, but there were certainly no shortage of people in high school who thought that it was fun to try this stuff.

Just don't get it.
 
Huge increase in the past few years in EMS calls. Louisville had some 50 overdose calls in 24 hours or something like that last month in which fentanyl was highly suspect. Big news in the fire/EMS world...narcan (the antidote given to OD victims) doesn't work so well in these cases, and fentanyl is so potent that a tablet the size of a tylenol is lethal. Fentanyl OD victims can actually contaminate other people, even post mortem. Scary.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
If the article is correct... another drug death.

.....

Essentially synthetic heroin, much more potent.
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A little misleading. Heroin is also a synthetic drug. A derivative of morphine. Probably a more accurate statement would be that it is a synthetic opioid(of which there are many), considerably stronger than heroin. Schedule II drug.
 
That's the same drug that took Michael Jackson out. I believe his Dr was charged for that or at least there was a trial.
 
TheTraveler said:
Huge increase in the past few years in EMS calls. Louisville had some 50 overdose calls in 24 hours or something like that last month in which fentanyl was highly suspect. Big news in the fire/EMS world...narcan (the antidote given to OD victims) doesn't work so well in these cases, and fentanyl is so potent that a tablet the size of a tylenol is lethal. Fentanyl OD victims can actually contaminate other people, even post mortem. Scary.
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Most of the fentanyl overdoses seen in EMS are not from someone carefully drawing up 50 or 100mcg of pharmaceutical quality fentanyl into a syringe. They are the result of drug-dealers adding fentanyl derivatives from china to their product to make it more desireable for the heroin addicts. As the stuff is so much more potent than the underlying heroin, only small increases in the amount of the additive will cause these rashes of overdoses that we see all over the country. Last year, we had a local case with two fatal overdoses in the same house the same day. The sheriffs department crime scene van had barely left when the next call came for another OD (through a quirk in local dispatch, the second case was investigated by the state police).
 
weilke said:
Not necessarily so. 'drug paraphernalia' could have just been the syringes and tourniquets used to inject whatever they had on hand.

Fentanyl is used in hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers and doctors offfices. Even with good inventory controls and 'four eyes' rules, you occasionally have diversion of the substance by staff. Fentanyl is short acting and washes out of your system very quickly. You could inject a dose of fenta today and pee a clean urine drug screen tomorrow. The impression that it is 'clean' and doesnt come with the same risks as heroin sometimes causes people who are otherwise not addicts to play around with it. During the time I was a resident, several people at the different hospitals I came through died from fenta overdoses. That was before the current 'heroin epidemic' and none of them were heroin addicts.
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And that paraphernalia (needles, etc) is what a heroin user has. This, unfortunately, is my professional world: I have 3 current fentanyl death investigations going on right now. Fentanyl, Carfentanyl, Fenyl Fentanyl, etc, its all heroin-use based on the street. People that get medical fentanyl rarely die from it...and a husband and wife would only both OD at the same time from street (heroin) fentanyl. Coincidentally, if the local heroin junkies can find out where this husband and wife that OD'ed got their drugs from, they all now go to that very dealer that sold the deadly heroin, because now they KNOW it is the good stuff. Shows just how messed up the addiction is.
 
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saddletramp said:
That's the same drug that took Michael Jackson out. I believe his Dr was charged for that or at least there was a trial.
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That was propofol. The 'milk of amnesia'. It doesn't do much for pain, it just puts you asleep. Often used together with fentanyl in the OR.
 
The problem with the war on opiods is that those who really need it cannot get it when they need it and the does seem to have an endless river of the stuff. I know someone who is in near constant pain because of this.
The dopes go through the trash looking for these fentanyl patches. They soak it, suck it, or otherwise get it out of the patch. Then they foolishly add it to whatever other crap they are using to get a higher high. Frankly, I cannot feel sorry for them nor do I condone the first responders carrying narcan to keep them alive when most school systems do not have epi pens to save a child from an alergic reaction. Take care of the seniors, children, and vets before we spend money saving a criminal.
 
saddletramp said:
That's the same drug that took Michael Jackson out. I believe his Dr was charged for that or at least there was a trial.
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Prince got his "itch" from Fentanyl.
 
Velocity173 said:
Prince got his "itch" from Fentanyl.
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Well, Prince did have a legit reason to be on pain meds. Apparently he had a pretty ground up hip at the time of his death. What doesn't seem to be so legit is how the prescribing physician sent his son as a courier to deliver the drugs across state lines. That's not how it works.
 
In BC. Canada, where I live, there are 4.6 million people. 102 died last month from drug ODs. About the same in January. Distracted driving kills around 80 per year here, so the drug thing is WAY bigger. I can't understand why most folks would fool with such stuff, especially if they're not addicts and are just playing around. People worry about dying in an airliner, or while driving in the snow, yet they'll mess with stuff that has far bigger chances of killing them.
 
weilke said:
Well, Prince did have a legit reason to be on pain meds. Apparently he had a pretty ground up hip at the time of his death. What doesn't seem to be so legit is how the prescribing physician sent his son as a courier to deliver the drugs across state lines. That's not how it works.
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Yeah but he really should have been on something less potent. My med crews give Fentanyl when you've got a bone sticking out of your leg. You shouldn't be taking Fentanyl months later when a bone is no longer sticking out of your leg. At that point, it's become an addiction.
 
Velocity173 said:
Yeah but he really should have been on something less potent. My med crews give Fentanyl when you've got a bone sticking out of your leg. You shouldn't be taking Fentanyl months later when a bone is no longer sticking out of your leg. At that point, it's become an addiction.
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There are legit uses for fentanyl patches for non-tumor pain. But yes, this is very potent stuff and other medical or surgical options should be pursued before someone ends up with a fenta patch. There are occasional cases of accidental overdoses from fenta patches, even if they are used as prescribed. Drug interactions, changes in liver metabolism, changes in absorption rate due to heat all can change the balance enough for someone to show signs of toxicity. I don't have the exact numbers, but I believe that at this point the great majority of fenta ODs are from illicit use, not a side effect of prescribed pain therapy.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I have certainly seen impressions that because a drug is something used in hospitals it is safe. Of course it's like boost - some boost is safe, too much will blow up your engine, and you need to know what you're doing to know where that line is.
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When I started to read this I thought "boost" was some sort of street drug. I was thinking, Ted what are you into?
 
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I've had Fentanyl for an outpatient procedure and it was the best stuff I've had in regard to procedure medicines. However, I can't imagine people abusing it outside a controlled environment. The nurse who administered it had to give me a pre dose of another pain med to combat the horrible burning sensation from the Fentanyl. So I wouldn't dream taking this stuff outside a hospital.
 
Fent be da shizzle. I got shot up wid it fo a few tings. It be pure ******.
 
Soo maybe I can add to this conversation because Brian was one of my best friends. I have known him most of my life. He was a flight instructor of mine, we went snowmobiling last month, and we flew a trip in a Navajo about 5 weeks ago.

I don't know what happened yet but I just had a very long conversation with another person who thinks some things are not adding up here.

I have never known him to take drugs of any kind. That is certainly not to say that he didn't or hasn't but I'm not convinced he or they decided to shoot up feyntal at night knowing they had to take the kids to school in the morning. It's such a tragedy that such a good guy and father is gone.

I just talked to him a few days ago and they were talking about getting the bikes out to go ride when the weather broke. I'm not convinced yet but I'll wait and see.
 
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