From here.
I didn’t see another thread on this. Apologies if there was one already. Conaway’s last movement appears to be turning his head two days or so again. No prognosis. Doctors unsure if/when he’ll ever wake up. He’s had a lot of drug problems in recent years.
Potentially a sad end to a tortured life.
I have lost my ability to feel any sorrow or sympathy for that man.
There is a point at which I cannot absolve people for their complete and utter lack of personal responsibility for their own shit.
According to Radar Online (sorry, no way to link right now), Conaway’s manager says the actor is in his “final moments” following an OD of prescription painkillers last week. The site also quotes an unidentified source as saying that the OD was a suicide attempt.
Taxi is one of my all-time favorite TV shows. The ensemble cast is one of televisions all-time bests. Conaway was only a supporting character, but a very good one. He is an integral part of the “What Does a Yellow Light Mean?” scene, one of the funniest all time TV sitcom scenes.
I have always thought Conaway was better known as Bobby Wheeler but most of the online stories I have read today lists his main credit as Kenickie in Grease.
I truly hope he can recover from this OD and his demons. He must be really tortured.
Failing that I hope he dies. It’s not that I wish death on him or think he’s a terrible person, but death is preferable to the condition he’s been living in for years.
I know very little about opiate/narcotic overdoses, but I thought they killed you by slowing down your heart and respiratory system to the point of death, but they could easily be reversed with antagonist drugs, which almost instantly counteract the depressive effects and snap the OD back into terra firma within seconds.
Obviously this is not always the case, but does anyone know why they can’t save the patient in a situation like this?
(did the other drugs that the actual narcotics are mixed with, perhaps acetaminophen, as in Vicodin, fry his liver?)
EMT checking in (and, any information in this post that is factually inaccurate is my fault). A lot of info can be found here. In my experience, several factors apply to the use of activated charcoal. Charcoal can be very helpful in fighting OD’s, but a lot of its effectiveness depends on certain factors: amount of drugs ingested (or injected, or whatever), the length of time it has been since the drugs were taken, and exactly what the drugs taken WERE. A lot of times (again, in my experiences, and those experiences only), you’d be surprised that other people at the party/gathering/whatever have no idea of what all the patient took. Acetaminophen CAN fry the liver. There are also drugs that charcoal isn’t effective against (such as certain antidepressants).
There’s no guarantee that any OD is going to recover. Even if everything’s done exactly right, exactly when it should be done. Textbook cases die when they should recover. People that should be dead by all rights survive. No one can say with 100% certainty. But, while an enormously effective tool to fight ODs, charcoal can’t perform miracles.
ETA: I’m a basic EMT at the moment (lowest certification). In my state - Indiana - generally any OD I run on is going to have a paramedic or advanced EMT en route, also, to provide more extensive care than my certification will allow me to provide.
Thanks for the info, Superdude; I had no idea that it was charcoal that was administered, as opposed to an actual drug to counteract the narcotics.
Anyway, I knew nothing about Jeff Conaway except for his role on “Taxi” but I just read a bit about him, and apparently he has been a hardcore drug addict for many years, and this was supposedly an attempted suicide, not an accidental OD.
I certainly admire the work that you EMT’s do, that can’t be an easy career!!!
It’s my unprofessional understanding that activated charcoal was only effective in soaking up drugs/alcohol that was was ingested, not injected. It essentially neutralizes the stuff while it’s still in the stomach and hasn’t yet been absorbed into the bloodstream. Once it’s in the bloodstream it’s a much tougher issue to fix, but that said you can counteract depressants with stimulants and stimulants with depressants in the hospital but that can create a really toxic stew if not done properly. And in some cases the organ damage can be too severe to fix.
I have Conaway in my death pool, so…
Thanks for the kind words. It’s not an easy job, and it can wear you down at times. It’s almost my family business. My dad and grandfather were career firefighters. My mom used to be a nurse before she went crazy.
You don’t do the job for the money…THAT’s for sure. You do it because you want to help people. And I can’t wait to find out when/if I can go back to it…I had surgery 2 weeks ago for a herniated disc (work related). Still have 14 staples in my back.
ETA: Thanks, Omni, for filling in the cracks I left open.
There is an actual drug. It’s called naloxone.
And, of course, Omni’s right about injected drugs. I misspoke on that. Charcoal is primarily used for ingested drugs, not injected.
And thanks to Silver Fire, as well. Naloxone is also known as Narcan, Nalone, and Narcanti.
Here’s People magazine’s article: http://www.cnn.com/2011/SHOWBIZ/celebrity.news.gossip/05/20/jeff.conaway.struggles.ppl/index.html?iref=NS1
Conaway also had a relatively small but good role in Babylon 5. I can’t say I’ve followed his personal life at all; I had no idea before now that he’d been grappling with addiction.
I had never heard of charcoal for medicinal value. Interesting.
He was on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. If I recall, he did not stay for the full season. That was when I first heard of his addiction.
I have always had an affinity for Conaway as, well, Conaway is my maiden name, and he is the only other person I’ve ever heard of with the same last name. Obviously there are lots of other Conaways out there, but the only ones I know of are family and this guy.
Annnnnd…Not the greatest representative of the family name. When he is sober and not in pain, he seems like a cool guy–sad thing is, he is pretty much always under the influence and/or in pain now, so all we see is the sad, emotional, reactive, wreck of a shell of a man that is left. He really is just a sad, tragic story.
For the record, lavage, as they mention in that article (more commonly known as getting one’s stomach pumped), is very tiring on the people doing it (at least around here, it’s still done manually, though I suppose bigger cities could have a computerized system), as you have to keep a constant motion going with one arm while tubes including saline are pushed into the stomach, and the “offending material” is vacuumed out (in a “push in, pull out” rhythm). It also has a tendency to be very messy, with appropriately disgusting smells. And you sometimes slip in the stomach contents and vomit.
I didn’t see Grease and I never watched Taxi. I knew Conaway as Zack Allen from Babylon 5.
He was good in that, not a huge part but a significant supporting role. I feel bad that he’s been in such pain. I hadn’t followed him after the show, and didn’t know of his addiction.
I’ve watched Celebrity Rehab, and I feel that death is preferable to his recent life. Obviously he agreed. RIP.
If he makes it, I hope he appreciates it and makes a better life for himself.
It’s all Olivia Newton-John’s fault. She was his sister-in-law. Newton-John was also Karen Carpenter’s best friend, and where is she now? Dead - that’s where. Newton-John had a boyfriend who just disappeared at sea and her ex-husband lives in a tee-pee.
To boot, she gave birth to the second ugliest celebrity kid (behind Rumer Willis).
Newton-John may not be bad luck, but I think when she’s around all the good luck just attaches itself to her and leaves none for anyone else 