Experience: Losing a friend to a drug overdose

CW: Drug abuse

*Names have been changed.

“It felt like a movie, it felt fake, especially when we ran up to the house to see what was going on. We could see Luke looking down at us, his face was white as a ghost.”

Less than a month ago Kate, a Wellington student in her 20s, hopped on a plane to Auckland for a weekend of celebration.

She expected to spend her weekend hanging out and partying with friends she hadn’t seen for a while, not to lose one.

Kate discusses the night with a faint sense of melancholy, remembering and cherishing the last time she saw a friend talk, dance and laugh. The calm before the storm.

A group including Kate's best friend Megan and two of Megan's flatmates, Tom and Luke, embarked on the obligatory Saturday rager.

“It was a great night. I’ll admit we were taking drugs, but nowhere near as much as Tom was.

“Me and Megan called it a night around 2am and went to Tom’s flat for ‘kick-ons’ before heading off to my hotel at 3am.”

The following day, around 1pm, Kate and Megan were called by a distressed Luke. Tom had stayed up all night and was behaving erratically.

“Luke thought Tom had overdosed and was having a psychotic episode, running himself into walls and smashing his head against them,” Kate recalls.

“Tom thought Luke was trying to kill him, that he had hired a sniper, so he was throwing things at him, throwing the table.”

Kate and Megan rushed over.

“When we arrived, so did the ambulance and the police. As we were running up to the house Luke texted us and said that Tom was dead.”

Initially the pair misinterpreted the message as meaning the police had arrested Tom for his behaviour and possessing a variety of narcotics.

“We thought Luke’s text might have meant Tom had been caught with some drugs. ‘He’s dead’ as in ‘it's over, he’s done’.”

Hints of anger can be heard in Kate's hushed tone as she recalls the manner in which Tom's fate was finally revealed.

“We didn't know if he was dead yet, and they came down with the defibrillator and said ‘bloody nice day isn’t it, alright so shall we go get the death certificate’, and that's how we found out.

"My friend dropped to the ground.” Kate suspects a lethal cocktail of recreational drugs and prohibited performance enhancing drugs are behind her friend's death.

“I know that he had cocaine, ketamine, MDMA and possibly other stuff.

“He kept doing drugs all throughout the next day and obviously took it too far.

“He was also on performance enhancing drugs, so I think his heart could have given in at any minute.”

Kate's experience has drastically changed her views on drugs, especially on what constitutes drug abuse and when something has gone too far.

“It made me realise how many other people we know do stuff like that on a night out and just think it's normal.

“If I saw people doing things in excess now, even if I didn’t know them that well, I’d step in.

“You need to test your drugs and you need to know what you’re putting in your body.”

With a voice painfully familiar with the subject on which it is speaking, she ends the interview with one last piece of advice.

“Don't push it, know your limits.”

Note: A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice confirmed Tom's death has been referred to the Coroner and the case is active.