Bath Salt Users Recall Horrifying Stories

June 03--One self-professed bath salts user, a 19-year-old woman from Kingsport, once drove herself to the emergency room because she thought there were worms in her leg. She was so convinced the worms were there that she cut her leg open to check -- scars she still has today.

She said she hallucinated every time she used the synthetic drugs, which has been as often as two or three times a day for days on end, for the past year.

"I saw shadow people," she said. "One night I was in my backyard, in my sunroom. I swear I thought there were people going to come in my house and steal my stuff. I had a knife in one hand and a bat in another. I was cussing and everything."

The woman, who said she would prefer to remain anonymous to protect herself, her friends and her family, is currently in the Sullivan County jail -- there because of charges she says are related to her bath salts use.

'These people are seeing demons'

Her story is familiar to an undercover investigator at Sullivan County Sheriff's Office. He deals with many of the synthetic-drug related calls in the county, and said has seen a lot of interesting behavior.

"Most of the time, these people are seeing demons, fighting demons," he said. "We've had people break walls down. One guy was in jail beating off snakes, he thought he was surrounded by snakes. Some people ... were shooting the tree line because they thought the SWAT was out to get them."

One night, a man was lying in the middle of the highway, buck-naked. He thought he was surrounded by police officers, and was surrendering to them, as though he was being handcuffed. That man's friends were able to get him out of the road safely before he was injured, the investigator said.

He said that particular hallucinatory image -- that law enforcement officers are there -- seems to be common among synthetic drug users.

"Our officer is the first one there, but to a guy on bath salts, he may be the 30th or 40th," the investigator said. "They're already on edge when we get there."

And, he said, because the officer -- or paramedic or whoever first gets the call to help -- doesn't know what's going on in the drugged person's head, they treat them like any other person with a mental illness.

"We try not to be as aggressive," he said. "We calm them down, tell them what they're seeing is not real."

So far, he said, there hasn't been a case where someone is so into their delusion that they can't eventually be talked out of it.

"At first, it's a very tense situation," the investigator said. "But all of our officers go through training -- to not touch them, not force the issue. That usually works."

Deaths in the region

In Sullivan County, no one on synthetic drugs has been shot to death, as was 31-year-old Rudy Eugene, the Miami man who earlier this week apparently attacked a homeless man and ate parts of his face. One theory still circulating is that Eugene was on synthetic drugs at the time.

Still, at least six Sullivan County residents have died in the past year or so from bath salts-related incidents, police and prosecutors have said.

"In all of our cases, its involved overdose or suspected suicides," said Leslie Earhart, the Sheriff's Office's public information officer.

A Kingsport man died officially in February of drowning, but autopsy reports indicate the man might have been on synthetic drugs of some kind, said Barry Staubus, Sullivan County's District Attorney General.

"The guy went into the lake and drowned. He was not in deep water but was doing some bizarre things," Staubus said. "We suspect he'd been abusing bath salts at the time of his death. Usually adult men don't drown in water up to their knees."

Bristol, Tenn., Capt. Charlie Thomas said it's hard to be exact about the number of people who have died of bath salts-related incidents in the city, mostly because of a lack of information in record-keeping.

"The medical community didn't become aware of this issue until we did," Thomas said. "Bath salts may have not been the direct cause, but an indirect cause. It depends on the circumstances and how it was presented in the emergency room. People could've been brought in to the ER and the [doctors] never made aware of it."

And, even with the national attention now given to synthetic drugs -- attention along the lines of what was seen here about a year ago -- Thomas doesn't necessarily expect more people to decide to use the designer drugs.

"If people around here weren't aware of it by this point, they probably aren't aware of it even now," he said. "It's one of those rare cases where we're ahead of the trend apparently. In the '80s, the bigger cities were overrun with crack cocaine and then it started going away and we were overrun with it. This seems to be the opposite."

There are parts of Tennessee, even, that haven't seen the same use of synthetic drugs as have been seen here, Thomas said.

"I don't know that we can ever get rid of it totally, but I hope it's run its course here," he said.

arobinson@bristolnews.com

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