When I read this today, I had to pass it along.....*lol*
Driver chokes on dope without inhaling
BY STAN FINGER
The Wichita Eagle
The white car didn't signal properly as it was driving north on West Street about 8:45 p.m. Wednesday, so Wichita police officers Chris Nixon and Chris Mains turned on their patrol car's lights to conduct a routine traffic stop.
But there would be nothing routine about it.
The driver didn't pull over right away, Nixon said, and "we noticed some unusual movement" by the two people inside the car.
A few blocks farther north, "the driver began flailing around in the car," Nixon said.
The car began weaving until the driver brought the car to a stop, flung open the door and fell as he got out.
As the officers ran toward him, his car rolled backward and struck theirs.
"We're asking him if he can breathe," Nixon said, but the man couldn't speak. "He was literally suffocating while he was on the road."
Nixon and Mains used the Heimlich maneuver on the man while he was in a sitting position, but it didn't work. The man became limp, so the officers laid him down and used the Heimlich again.
That forced the knotted end of a plastic bag far enough up for the officers to see, so Mains put on plastic gloves and pulled it out while Nixon held the man's mouth open.
The 20-year-old had swallowed a plastic bag of marijuana in an attempt to hide it from the officers, Nixon said.
It was 2 ½ inches around and 3 inches long, and contained what turned
out to be 33 grams of marijuana.
"I couldn't believe he would attempt to swallow something that large," Nixon said.
The man's breathing quickly returned to normal, but he was taken by ambulance to Via Christi Regional Medical Center-St. Joseph Campus for treatment and later booked into the Sedgwick County Jail.
"He thanked us for saving him," Nixon said. "He was really desperate."
The driver's 18-year-old passenger was also arrested.
Nixon and Mains later determined that the choking man was without air for nearly four minutes.
The officers have a combined total of more than 25 years of law enforcement experience, and Wednesday night offered them a first.
"We've never seen anything like that -- ever," Nixon said. "When people are acting that unusual... you don't know what he's going to do -- he might jump out with a gun. That was very unusual."
Kansas.com | 06/15/2007 | Driver chokes on dope without inhaling
