Narcan used to revive women in Uber; mom believes they were drugged along Glenwood South

Kelsey Thomas said a phone call woke her up in the middle of the night.

"Being woken up out of a dead sleep with your child yelling, not knowing what was going on, was really scary," she described.

Kelsey Thomas said her daughter and a friend were coming home after a night out along Glenwood South, where they were celebrating a friend's birthday at a local bar.

Thomas believes her daughter and a friend were drugged before they got in an Uber.

"The Uber driver called 911, because he wasn't able to wake them up," Thomas said.

An overdose call went out over radio traffic to first responders just before 3 a.m. Friday, April 12. The Uber driver took them to their destination in Wake Forest; therefore, Wake Forest Police responded, as well as paramedics.

According to Thomas, EMTs used Narcan to revive the girls and save their lives. The incident is now under investigation by the Alcohol Law Enforcement (ALE).

WRAL asked Thomas how she knew the two women did not intentionally use drugs.

"The EMTs told me they put the girls in two different ambulances," Thomas described. "When they revived both of them, they both woke up extremely confused; they said the same thing; they didn't know what had happened to them. They kept saying, 'we were just drinking; we were just drinking.'”

Andrew Godfrey, associate medical director with Wake County EMS, said his team uses Narcan anywhere from 100 to 160 times a month. He said that is part of an upward trend since the pandemic.

It is not clear what drug the women might have ingested, but according to Godfrey, Narcan is specifically used to reverse opioid overdoses. He said paramedics look for certain signs of an opiate overdose, including very small pupils, slow breathing or no breathing and a lower level of consciousness.

Those were some of the same symptoms EMTs saw in the two women that night.

"I think it's very important that people are aware of what a drug overdose may look like," said Bettie Murchison, the co-founder of Village of C.A.R.E. "This happens more than we know."

Thomas posted on Facebook, sharing that she believes the two women were drugged. That post has since gone viral, with more 2,000 shares. She said they went to the hospital the next morning. Wake Forest police also say Kelsey Thomas accompanied her daughter and her friend to follow up with their officers.

"The two girls felt guilty because they felt like they should've been more vigilant, they should've watched better," Thomas said. “The girls said, 'We didn't put our drinks down. We weren't with people we didn't know. It was really crowded.' They had gone out and gone for a hotdog from a hotdog vendor.”

Thomas is thankful the Uber driver called 911 but said it's a situation no parent should ever be in.

"If these girls had gotten out of that Uber and gone into that apartment and gone to sleep, they probably wouldn't be here," Thomas said. "Everybody would think they overdosed when that wasn't the case."

Since the incident, Thomas said her daughter is still mentally recovering.

“It's trauma. It's scary. It's scary to go to sleep at night and not know if you're going to wake up. There's anxiety that comes from it,” Thomas said.

She said her family has taken steps to spread awareness and prevent this from happening again. They are also now in contact with Raleigh Police.