Tuna just gave a press conference in which he stated, over and over again, that he didn’t know anything until he got tired of the same repeated questions and walked away. I kind of dug seeing the reporters get stonewalled like that.
Whether it was attempted suicide or not, I think reporting it as such was a mistake absent concrete evidence to support it. The police report they cited in reporting it that way is apparently not a final report, and I have my doubts as to how qualified the officers were to recognize an attempted suicide.
I do find it odd that Parcells hasn’t spoken to Owens at all. That seems strange to me.
We don’t know that Parcells hasn’t tried to talk to Owens, but if he doesn’t answer the phone and nobody knows where he is, what are you going to do?
Owens arrived at the training complex before Parcells’s news conference, and yet based on what the Tuna said in his news conference, it didn’t even sound like any attempt to speak to each other had been made.
My gut feeling is that it was an attempt, but everyone involved is going to deny it because it’s not something that needs to be discussed in the media.
You mean like building a stadium that people are still paying for? Or losing their Major League Baseball team?
Oh wait, Toronto’s downfall?.. Never mind. 
Owens just gave a press conference denying everything and seemed pretty believable. He claims that he had emptied his pill bottle into a drawer and that his publicist freaked out when she saw the bottle. He said that he had a bad reaction to the pills (which he identified as hydrocodone, aka vicodin) and that he was sort of groggy and out of it. The publicist saw the empty bottle, saw that he wasn’t responding coherently and called 911, Owens debied taking more than 2 or 3 pills and responded to questions about why he answered “yes” when the cops asked him if he was trying to harm himself by saying he was totally out of it, that a bunch of people were asking a bunch of different questions and that he doesn’t remember much about it. I find it totally believable that he was just wasted at the time and wasn’t really tracking conversations.
Plus, he seems too alert and well to be recovering from an OD. He says he didn’t have his stomach pumped and there’s no way he could have been running around catching passes from Drew Bledsoe today if he’d really taken 30 pills.
His publicist also denied that she ever said he was “depressed” and also denied that she had taken any pills out of his mouth. It sounds like he was also trying to take some dietary supplements at the same time and that had something to do with the reaction.
Anyway, I’m now totally convinced that this was a media storm about nothing, based on premature and incorrect information.
While I can’t speak specifically to Texas, IME the police are usually the first people in to see a potentially suicidal person. In most jurisdictions, as well, they are qualified to initiate a Mental Health Hold, as well. So they should be trained to “recognize an attempted suicide.”
Those are the magic words, right there. If you say that to the police (or to me, for that matter) you’re going to end up an a mental health hold. You’ll still be on the hold even if you immediately retract it. However, the hold can be discharged by a doctor at any time. So, if the doc believes that T.O. was out-of-it, not paying attention, whatever, he could immediately discharge the hold.
St. Urho
Paramedic
I think that news conference just confirms suspicions, actually. His publicist was making no sense, and the “I put the pills in a drawer” excuse makes no sense. I’d also like to know how a player practices for at least an hour after all this without the head coach speaking to him.
There was a press conference earlier today where a police spokesman was all but disavowing that initial report – at least refusing to confirm anything in it – and he sounded pretty irritated that it was out there at all. It wasn’t even an official report or anything, just leaked information which he refused to endorse.
Has anyone seen T.O’s press conference? That didn’t look like anyone recovering from an OD to me. The reporters seemed pretty sorely disappointed about it too.
What did the publicist say that didn’t make sense?
The thing with the pills sounded credible to me too. Michael Irvin said that a lot of players do that when they take mutiple pills. They empty everything out so they can portion all their daily doses into one bottle.
It sounds like the alleged missing pills have now been accounted for, so there’s really no story left here.
It strikes me that if I’m having a severe allergic reaction and being questioned by the police, I might not be capable of answering accurately, regardless of the nature of the question.
Likewise if I had been subjected to an accidental overdose of prescription pain-killers.
Hippy Hollow said-
Agree with that. I’m an Eagles fan and the fans, the team, even McNabb gave him chance after chance. No one wanted him to leave but he just seemed to enjoy drama and creating problems. Most player’s don’t continually badmouth a team the way he did and McNabb really tried to get along with him.
Even though he caused so many problems I still feel bad for him for some reason. I really hope it was just a reaction because I’d hate to see anything bad happen to the guy. I just really have a feeling that this isn’t the last drama you’ll hear about him. He really does seem to have some sort of personality disorder. People have had worse problems and reputations than he has and have straightened out and I really hope he does too.
I think the simplest explanation here is that he simply had a reaction, maybe took a couple too many and that a firestorm blew up.
In other words, I believe TO. In his news conference, he was confident, forthcoming, answered his questions directly. He didn’t even look or sound like a guy who was hung-over, much less coming off an OD suicide attempt. The doctors clearly weren’t too concerned about him.
Today, I’m hearing these other theories about how it’s a cover-up, and the team got the doctors to release him, and it all falls apart just like any other conspiracy theory – you need massive coordination from a lot of people. Time to drop it. Everyone had their fun when they thought it was a suicide attempt, but it wasn’t. Move on. Nothing to see here.
What a dumb cunt his publicist is “he has 25 million reasons not to kill himself”- what is she, 12 years old? Tell that to Kurt Cobain.
I would think if he swallowed 35 pills, he would have his stomach pumped. If he did, that would be easy to prove. And Micheal Irvin is not the best person to have coming to your defense- the guy who “hid” a weed pipe under the seat of his car so his kids wouldn’t find it? What, he doesn’t have a garbage can?
Agreed, wealth does not protect you from depression.
I dunno how easy it would be to prove if his stomach was pumped. At least here in PA HIPAA laws prevent disclosing such information. And it should.
I dislike TO, but I hope this was not a suicide attempt and I hope he finds his health.
I’ve heard a couple of times on the radio that the alleged missing pills were found in his drawer where he said they were, so I don’t know what they would have pumped out of his stomach. He didn’t take 35 pills, and it doesn’t sound like the cops or the hospital think there was anything to be concerned about. I really think this was just waht T.O. says it was – a bad reaction to a bad combinations of painkillers and supplements. Just because he’s Terrell Owens doesn’t mean he can’t be telling the truth. Actually, I don’t think dishonesty has EVER been one of his failings, if anything, he’s always been TOO honest.
Even more compelling is that he was on the field catching passes from Bledsoe and Romo a couple hours later.
You don’t do that a couple hours after they pump your stomach. Plus, I saw no sign of activated charcoal on his tongue as he was leaving the hospital.