Is There Anything That Can Be Done While Witnessing a Cocaine Overdose?
Question by Sarah G: Is there anything that can be done while witnessing a cocaine overdose?
This is a serious question, please don’t judge or be snarky. I am looking for a real answer.
I have several friends who do hard drugs, and cocaine worries me. Obviously after seeing signs of an overdose (which I know – seizure, tachycardia, hyperthermia, confusion) I would call 911. But would there be anything I could do in the meantime? Would any type of medication help if I crushed it under their tongue? Thank you.
Best answer:
Answer by Nannon
Just try to keep them awake, i don’t know what else to do apart from that. many people make the mistake of sleeping during a cocaine overdose and die. Hope this helps a little bit
Answer by Pandora93
I’ve never heard of ANYone SLEEPing during a cocaine overdose, but then I haven’t seen every overdose there is. Maybe they sleep on other people’s shift.
Cocaine is a massive stimulant, and anyone overdosing on it isn’t going to be able to stand still. Regular use of cocaine, one that doesn’t cause the patient to become unconscious from going into cardiac arrest, causes massive stimulation, b/c it turns on the sympathetic nervous system, which is also known as the ‘fight’ part of fight or flight. It increases blood pressure, heart rate and cardiac output, which are the main things to look for if someone is overdosing on cocaine. If you take a patient’s pulse while he’s overdosing on cocaine, it will be extremely rapid and usually bounding, which means it feels like it’s coursing through the body with more power than a normal pulse.
But there’s no antidote for cocaine use like there is for narcotics: the antidote for narcotics is called narcan. The only thing you can do for cocaine overdose is manage the cardiac issues and hope they didn’t give themselves too large of a dose.
That’s one of the reasons I think taking drugs is self-destructive in the first place, even more so when there’s nothing to reverse its effects.
*Note: In a cocaine overdose the patient’s pupils will be extremely large even if it’s light out. If their eyes look like that, you need to tell the 911 Operator that. And hope you get a better one than the one last night. We arrived on the scene and nothing was remotely close to what she had said to us when it was being called in.