The Sturgis Rally is known for its outlaw culture.
Each and every year, despite the organizer's best efforts, as well as the state and federal law enforcement's, things occur during the rally that can best be described as criminal. It's a fact of life, at least when you get nearly 500,000 bikers together. But usually, it's a couple fist fights, some low-level drug dealing, street racing, and indecent exposure of an overweight dentist who thinks he's in Sons of Anarchy.
Sometimes someone dies, but that's usually because they didn't wear a freakin' helmet...
But at the Sturgis Rally this year, there was an unusually high number of drug overdoses. At least, that's what it presented as. In fact, medical officials aren't quite sure what went down.
According to South Dakota Searchlight, a string of "overdose-like" symptoms were seen across a swath of patients during the rally. "State health officials are unable to pinpoint the cause of an unusual string of suspected overdose cases—including two deaths—associated with the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally," reports the paper, adding, "At least 12 cases with similarly mysterious symptoms were reported to the state, with six of the patients requiring intubation."
What's odd about these cases isn't that there were overdoses at the rally, but rather that the state officials can't figure out what caused it. According to the State Public Health Laboratory's Director Tim Southern, they ran a full blood workup of two patients, including one who passed away, and couldn't pinpoint a culprit or anything linking the two.
These mysterious "overdose-like" cases included patients exhibiting signs of shallow breathing, seizures, and hallucinations, and some who experienced cardiac arrest. The first of these incidents occurred on July 28th, while the last was on August 7th. The state officials said once the rally was over, the occurrences ended, which lends itself to the two being related to one another and not environmental.
According to the paper, "Some patients required multiple doses of sedatives, because it was 'very, very difficult' to control the patients while they were transported to an emergency room." And before anyone gets in the comments, yes, the labs tested for methamphetamines.
As of right now, state officials are stumped as to what caused the outbreak of odd "overdose-like" symptoms, mainly because they weren't informed and couldn't link the series together until after the fact and everyone, at least everyone who didn't die, left the area. Further testing, as well as interviews, just couldn't be done.
Whatever the case may be, a reminder to everyone, if you don't know what's in something, maybe don't consume it? Just a thought. Also, for the love of god, don't ride high. Jesus.
