Woman high on bath salts dies after shock from police Taser
Pamela McCarthy
/ Courtesy Utica Observer-Dispatch
The eyewitness accounts are too wild to believe. A woman tearing off her clothes and running across the street growling. Witnesses told police Pamela McCarthy was punching and choking her child. She was strangling her dog. She was attacking a neighbor.
A New York State Trooper used pepper spray, but it did not phase the 200 pound woman. The Trooper repeatedly told her to let go of the dog or he would use his Taser. McCarthy did not obey because she was so out of her mind on bath salts.
Shortly after receiving the jolt she collapsed into cardiac arrest. We later learned she had angioplasty a few days before. The autopsy has not yet determined the cause of death, but it's reasonable to say the bath salts, bad heart and electric jolt could all be contributing factors.
This all happened in our own backyard, the community of Munnsville in Madison County. This wasn't Florida with its dose of cannibalistic behavior connected to bath salts. This was small town Upstate New York. What is going on that is leading people to take a taste of a unkown mix of manufactured chemicals tossed into a tidy, slick packet?
We know these new synthetic drugs are relateviley affordable, accessible and up until recently completely legal. They effects are devastating. The addiction experts tell us bath salts and other similar substances can act like a cross of pot and acid with a dose of speed. Users report feeling lousy afterward, yet still want to do it again. Until the next time is the last time.
It's time for communities to fully understand the source of this nearly unbelievable behavior. Bath salts and other synth-drugs are not to be taken lightly or better yet not taken at all.
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