the Lightning in a Bottle lawsuit - the dangers of harm reduction services

[The Gays From LA]

I had not heard of this Lightning in a Bottle lawsuit:

The verdict returned by the jury could potentially influence the Zendo’s ability to secure insurance or affect services offered by medical providers at festivals. The MAPS statement asserts that because people may use psychedelics and have challenging experiences, “we as a community must acknowledge and mitigate the risks by providing harm reduction services…” Much of the testimony during the trial focused on whether MAPS and the other defendants did this effectively.

According to the Gatlin family’s complaint, Baylee Gatlin began showing signs of distress near an LiB stage area the day before her death on May 28th, 2017. Observing that her legs were shaking and that she was unable to drink water or speak coherently, her friends brought her at 7 pm that evening to a medical station operated by RGX Medical adjacent to the tent that housed the Zendo Project space. Gatlin’s friends told Zendo and RGX volunteers that they believed she had taken LSD.

While Gatlin later tested positive for LSD, the family asserted in their complaint that she died of multi-organ failure due to heatstroke. They contend that their daughter did not receive proper care or fluids despite the fact that Zendo volunteers and her friends saw that she was having convulsions, vomiting and foaming at the mouth. When an ambulance was called six and half hours after Gatlin arrived at the Zendo, the complaint says she had a temperature of 105 degrees, a heart rate of 170 and was in respiratory distress.

Attorneys for Gatlin’s family argued during the trial that it was not harm reduction services themselves that caused Gatlin’s death, but the negligent care that she received from both Zendo and RGX staff. During the six and half hours during which she was at the Zendo, Gatlin’s medical condition significantly deteriorated and she went into cardiac arrest in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. MAPS attorney Charles Custer argued during the trial that the psychoactive substance 25I-NBOMe may have played a role in Gatlin’s death, but it was not detected in her pathology tests.

In its lawsuit and later during the trial, lawyers for Gatlin’s family said that MAPS was negligent in the hiring, training and supervision of Zendo staff and volunteers. They asserted that the Zendo was understaffed and deviated from the protocols outlined in its own training manual. When asked at the courthouse after the verdict what she felt MAPS and the Zendo should do in response to the verdict, Carla Gatlin replied, “Train their volunteers better. I know it’s hard to tell the difference between a bad trip and dehydration because they really mimic each other. But just more training.”

During a talk at the Palenque Norte speaker series at the 2022 Burning Man gathering, Giron, who was serving as Director of Harm Reduction for the Zendo Project in 2017, noted that Zendo services at Burning Man include a medical triage volunteer on each shift who does a brief assessment of each guest as they enter the space. The triage volunteer is available to sitters in the Zendo for additional evaluation of guests, including monitoring of vital signs, and can escalate cases to medical providers if needed.

Attorneys for Gatlin’s family noted that the Zendo did not have their own medical triage person in place during the 2017 LiB. Carla Gatlin said after the verdict that she doesn’t believe that Siri Garfinkle, her daughter’s first sitter in the Zendo who covered her in blankets, evaluated her properly. Garfinkle testified that she did not touch Baylee Gatlin during the first few hours she was in the Zendo. When Garfinkle did touch Gatlin later to roll her on her side and protect her airway as she vomited, she said Gatlin did not feel warm.

Carla Gatlin believes that if someone had evaluated her daughter to see if she was running a fever, that would have alerted them that Gatlin was gravely ill and needed more care. “I don’t think they followed their protocols,” says Gatlin. “I don’t think they trained their volunteers through their protocols such as touching somebody, doing the skin test.” Asked if she felt the Zendo staff had a duty to call an ambulance instead of escalating to RGX Medical as their protocols called for, Gatlin replied, “As a human, yeah.”

MAPS Found Liable in Wrongful Death Lawsuit - Lucid News

After a three-week trial, a jury found MAPS partially responsible for the wrongful death of a woman cared for in the Zendo Project peer support space and liable for damages.

www.lucid.news

This perfectly shows why "harm reduction" only creates more liabilities. This is that Zendo organization:

Carla Gatlin did note that Pardo, the RGX medical volunteer, took action when she saw her daughter around 1 a.m. the following morning. “The first nurse that came in, they saw her, they threw ice on her and called an ambulance. That was a trained professional,” said Gatlin.

Gatlin contends, however, that the medic station where her daughter was assessed, which was not the main festival medical unit, did not have adequate staff. She says that with an event as large as LiB, she believes that the county and event producers should provide more infrastructure and resources for medical services.

“Definitely a lot more medical, and not volunteer medical but an actual licensed physician who can make the call to put an IV in somebody. I know dehydration is a big thing in these places so they should just be prepared for that constantly,” said Gatlin. “Keep the people safe. You build a city, but you don’t have the city infrastructure.”

MAPS spokesperson Betty Aldworth says she believes that medical services were inadequate at LiB and asserts that it was the responsibility of RGX to handle all medical issues. “From the testimony I heard, it seemed to be evident that medical was overwhelmed,” says Aldworth. “Do Lab contracted with RGX to handle all medical and the county signed off on a safety plan.”

Carla Gatlin said that she and Baylee’s other mother believe that much of the responsibility for effective harm reduction rests with those organizing and permitting events. She said that a new county ordinance in Ventura County, California where she lives now mandates specific resources required for safety services at festivals. She says that her family refers to this requirement as “Baylee’s law.”

“The biggest thing is I really want these festivals to be safe. I don’t want any more kids dying,” says Gatlin who noted that there have been more deaths recently at large music events. “Kids are going to keep going, they are going to keep doing drugs,” says Gatlin. “And I am afraid they are not going to be safe.”

So the solution, according to the drug user's lesbian mothers, is not more thorough pat downs to keep drugs out of festivals, or a culture of more actively discouraging the use of drugs by festival attendants, f.e. by banning offenders from the premises. Their solution is "more medical care", whatever the hell that means. I guess they should use two Narcan sprays instead of one from now on, one for each nostril.

Dunno, maybe raising your kids to not need to resort to drug abuse to have fun at festivals is the best possible "harm reduction".

 

[Crimson Fucker]

Banning it and having the proper treatment isn't a bad idea either though. It doesn't have to be one or the other. Ban it while actively trying to keep it out and have medical treatment just in case. In fact have more than just narcan. Keep stuff for diabetic and allergic reactions etc. too.

 

[VAIDS Victim]

Wow, MAPS was really respected in the psychedelics sphere so it's sad that they had such poorly trained volunteers working for them. They even put blankets on her when she was dying of heat stroke.
It sounded like when a nurse finally saw her after 6 hours, she knew what was wrong and put her on ice but at that point her brain was fried and organs shutting down. I think harm reduction is a good idea but maybe hire some nurses with special training in caring for those on recreational drugs and not just randos with no medical training whatsoever.
I don't think expecting kids not to do drugs at festivals is realistic and banning them doesn't stop people from bringing them in against the rules. It's better to try to mitigate the dangers, they just didn't do it right here. Have nurses like those heroin clinics in Vancouver, not some retard illegal immigrant who makes things worse by warming someone dying of overheating.

 

[Crimson Fucker]

At 106 degrees f your body proteins literally start to denature and you can get brain damage if it's not lowered fast enough, fevers can kill.

And yes, banning only goes so far because people will inevitably sneak stuff in. I did it with food at the movies all the time. That's why only banning it is just a half measure and they need to have trained medical staff who know what to do with each type of overdose. Or there will just be another repeat of people dying due to negligence.