Prom Night Turns Tragic for Young Woman, 18, Who took Ecstacy & Special K Mix

May 21, 2002 | BarbieDoll

[Barbie Doll]

Teen Reported Brain Dead From Prom-Night Excess Email story to a friend SANTA ANA -- An 18-year-old Foothill High School student has been declared brain dead after taking the stimulant Ecstasy, the hallucinogen ketamine and alcohol on her senior prom night, it was reported Tuesday.

Cathy Isford was taken to Western Medical Center in Santa Ana on Sunday morning, a few hours after the prom. She remained in a coma and was declared brain dead by Sunday evening, the Orange County Register reported.

She will remain on life support for at least another day, the newspaper reported this morning.

Before the prom, the girl told her sister Star that she planed to take a mix of Ecstasy and "Special K," or ketamine, a hallucinogen widely used as an animal tranquilizer.

"She wanted to make it a perfect night," Star Isford, 27, told The Register, adding that she tried to stop her sister from taking the drugs.

"I told her be careful, watch what you do. (But) you can't tell somebody her age what to do," she said.

Police said Cathy became comatose after an apparent overdose brought on by a combination of Ecstasy, ketamine and alcohol.

Cathy Isford, who had planned to become an elementary school teacher, attended the prom with her fiance, Rene Rojas, 26. She snapped pictures of her friends as they danced at Joe's Garage, an auto museum at the Tustin Auto Center, her best friend, Sara Gulley, 18, told The Register.

Then Cathy Isford and Rojas and Gulley and her boyfriend, Jeremy Thomas, 19, went to a hotel in Santa Ana for a small post-prom party. Gulley thinks that Isford took the drugs en route to the hotel or once they arrived there, The Register reported.

"I begged her not to take it," Gulley said, adding that none of the others took drugs.

[general_re]

whatever happened to the ol' 12-pak and a fattie ? ? ?

Beats me. If this is the trend, what's next? Is next year's prom tragedy story going to be the poor innocent young thing who just didn't foresee the consequences of washing down a handful of Quaaludes with a big swig of wood alcohol?

signed,
Class of 1990

[BrooklynGOP]

The word usually would be enough for me but that's not enough for kids who have no sense of mortality. Damn shame. I'm sorry for her folks.

Does the article mention what she took? Not what she said she was going to take, but what she actually took? A lot of things that are NOT ecstasy get sold as E out there.. no quality control.

[Petronski]

whatever happened to the ol' 12-pak and a fattie ? ? ? signed, Class of 1983

Or just an ice-cold case (w/o the fattie)? ? ?

signed,

Class of 1985

[Thinkin' Gal]

An 18-year-old Foothill High School student has been declared brain dead after taking the stimulant Ecstasy, the hallucinogen ketamine and alcohol

More importantly, was she smoking cigarettes?

[ChiMark]

No sympathy for the young and stupid. It's standard fair for these proms to end at A hotel full of teeny weenies drinking and puking. It's tiring to hear this over and over every year. What's next? They will likely flood the school with grief counsellors so the darlings can deal with this tragedy. School will be suspended indefinitely so that the students can deal with this shocking event, then one year from now they'll assign more psychologists to help the children manager post stress syndrome or battle fatigue. She would've been a star public school teacher.

[Petronski]

Unless by fattie, you mean my prom date...

[Thinkin' Gal]

This one's 'loaded' with keywords; it's hard to know where to start. "Brain dead" certainly seems all-encompassing.

[TankerKC]

She wanted to make it a perfect night.

I guess she has a strange definition of perfect. Stupid. This sounds like the kind of thing you say when you realize that High School will be the highlight of your entire life.

[Huck]

whatever happened to the ol' 12-pak and a fattie ? ? ?

Works for me.

Signed,

Class of '86 1/2 (summer school)

[ThreeOfSeven]

Do you think her night was 'perfect'?

It was a perfect waste.

[Fish out of Water]

*Index Bump

[Barbie Doll]

I'm wondering if the boyfriends in these cases actually gave their girlfriends the drugs. Nice guys, huh?

[Kevin Curry]

An 18 year-old with a 26 year-old fiance?? Are her parents dead?

Nah. Just libertarians (her sister sure sounds like one). Wouldn't want to cramp her style.

[jayef]

Horsepuckey.

[Polonius]

Another thread asked how drug education in schools could be improved. Cases like this provide an opportunity to show real-life examples of how badly things can go wrong. Also, this girl's extraordinary stupidity goes to show that drug educators should stress the dangers of mixing drugs like this, especially alcohol and any depressant/tranquilizer (not that that ecstacy didn't play a big role as well, I'm sure). Still, I'd wager that this girl took E, drank and then snorted a bunch of ketamine. She was asking for a coma, and it look like she got it.

[Jim Noble]

>>Cathy Isford, who had planned to become an elementary school teacher<<

There is a God!

[Jim Noble]

>>Also, the people who sell the drugs may not be completely honest about what is in them.<<

You're kidding!

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

I remember at my prom I was asked if I was going to get a room at the hotel.

My reply..." Why would I? It's only a half hour away from home and I probably won't be too tired to drive."

Innocent class of 80.

[eno_]

OK, let's see who volunteers to trample the Constitution because of this tragedy. I mean, if this isn't enough of an excuse to allow the FedGov to exceed its authority, what is?

Oh yeah, we already have a War on Drugs that was supposed to save this girl. I wonder if the parents will get a tax rebate for their share of the WoD. What, no moeny back guarantee?

[wardaddy]

Drugs...illegal and legal...are dangerous. I was lucky when I was young..someone was looking out for me. I would not blame the parents as some on this forum do, some kids like myself once can hoodwink their parents about recreational drug use. If one maintains good grades and acts responsibly at home or in front of other parents then that same kid can be quite wild in the appropriate environment. I was a master at that I must confess.

Mixing alcohol with a number of other drugs often results in a problem. I suspect the Ketamine (or Kiniminol as we called it) mixed with alcohol is what did it rather than the X.