Woodward, Okla. — A Woodward teen lies in a hospice center in Midwest City.

According to his father Mike Hunter and his aunt Carolyn Reed, 18-year-old Chris Hunter is “living out his last days.”

The young man has been unresponsive since being picked up by an ambulance crew after overdosing on prescription drugs on March 17, Reed said.

After his overdose was discovered, Chris was first taken to Woodward Regional Hospital, but was later transferred to OU Medical Center in Oklahoma City, she said.

But by then, doctors basically told his family it was too late.

“Once 24 hours has passed, the medicine has worked into your system.  That’s why the doctors had a problem figuring out what was in his (Chris’) system, because it had already been 24 hours,” Mike Hunter said.

Reed said doctors were able to determine that some of the medicines ingested by Chris were prescriptions for high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease.

But without knowing all of the drugs that had been taken and because of the passage of time, Hunter said there wasn’t much the doctors could do for his son.

“The hospital couldn’t do anything for him; they tried and tried, but we had to end up putting him in hospice,” he said. “Now we’re sitting up here, counting the days.”

GETTING THE WORD OUT

In what might be Chris’ last days, the family is trying to spread awareness about the dangers of “pharm” parties, where teens get together and combine whatever variety of prescription drugs they can find and then ingest the pills.

“It’s a challenge for them to see who can take the most pills,” Reed said.  “I guess they try to see who will pass out first.”

In Chris’ case, his aunt said that on St. Patrick’s Day, he and another teenage boy had gotten together some pills and both overdosed.

But where Chris is now in hospice care, the other boy was able to recover and go home, Reed said.

Chris’ family said this only illustrates how dangerous these types of parties are, because no one knows how different people will react to these random drug combinations or how the drugs will interact with each other.

“They just don’t realize what they’re putting into their body,” Reed said.  “And when there’s 4 or 5 medications going into your body, there’s no way to know how they’ll react to each other.”

“There’s reasons why they’re called prescriptions,” Hunter said.  “They’re prescribed to one person and one person only.  Because what I can take, somebody else can’t take.”

IF HE HAD KNOWN

The consequences of mixing drugs are “devastating,” Hunter said.

“If parents want to see the outcome, what the future is of this, all they’ve got to do is look at what we’re going through,” he said. “Chris, he was hyper and active.  But now we got to treat him like a baby.”

A life that “had just started,” has now been “cut very short,” Reed said.

“He’ll never get a job.  He’ll never have a wife or kids.  He’ll never have the electric company hounding him about bills.  Those are life experiences that he’ll never have because of this,” Hunter said.

But those are life experiences they hope Chris’ story and memory will help other children to have someday by letting others know what the real consequences are of “pharm” parties.

“If Chris can change one life, then we’ve done our part,” Hunter said.

Reed knows her nephew's life may have been saved if he had only known how deadly the consequences could be.

“I know it’s something he would not have done for any other reason than he thought he would have fun.  There’s no way that he had a clue that what he did was going to end his life,” she said.

GET RID OF OLD MEDICATIONS

“It’s a sad, sad situation.  And you can’t really blame anyone, because Chris made this choice,” Reed said, but added that doesn’t mean there is nothing that people can do about it.

“It’s not that we just need to reach kids, but we need to reach parents and grandparents,” she said.

In addition making people aware of the parties, Reed and Hunter want others to know that there are ways to help keep prescription drugs out of the hands of teenagers.

“Throw your stuff away; that’s the simplest way to help these kids,” Hunter said.

He said people should check with local pharmacies and law enforcement agencies to see about where they can take medications they aren’t using anymore and have them disposed of properly.

Beyond trashing old medications, Reed urged people to consider locking up current prescriptions.

For more information about what you can do to help combat prescription drug abuse and help prevent “pharm” parties, contact the Area Prevention Resource Center at (580) 571-3240.