Suffolk man's death from fall in Great Yarmouth 'misadventure'
The court heard that Mr James had been out on two hours of unescorted leave from Northgate Hospital in the town, where he was a patient, at the time of the incident.Speaking after the inquest, his brother Michael described Mr James as having a "happy, cheeky smile."Area coroner Samantha Goward praised the family for listening to "the worst of evidence with incredible dignity".His medical cause of death was recorded as traumatic brain injury and adult respiratory distress syndrome after an unwitnessed fall.
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Sky News
28 minutes ago
- Sky News
'It destroyed my life': The drug addiction leaving users in chronic pain
Nicole will always remember the first time she took ketamine. It was the start of a night out and she didn't want to drink. So instead, she picked up the bag of white powder she found in her friend's car. It was a decision that had life-altering consequences. "I tried it and remember having it and just thinking, this is it," she recalls. "This is my saviour. This is my drug." Instead of rescuing her from her mental health struggles like she hoped it would, ketamine sent her into a spiral. Less than four years on, the 31-year-old mother of one from Southport is now living in a detox centre, separated from her son and living in chronic pain. 9:33 Nicole's journey from recreational use to a deep addiction that caused her severe bladder and kidney problems may be just one extreme case, but ketamine use is now at record levels. Experts believe this could cause a tidal wave of issues the country is not prepared for, placing severe pressure on the NHS, as well as addiction and mental health services. Currently a Class B drug, ketamine is used in clinical settings as an anaesthetic for people and animals. It is usually taken recreationally as a crushed powder, but also sometimes injected or swallowed - making people feel detached and dreamlike. Referred to as "ket" and "special k", it's easily available and costs around £30 a gram. Between 2023 and 2024, the number of children and young people who reported having a problem with the drug surpassed cocaine for the first time. The number of ketamine deaths in England and Wales also increased from seven in 2015 to 53 in 2023. 'I don't remember the last three years' I met Nicole at Birchwood, a residential drug and alcohol detox facility on the Wirral. In the week before I arrived, 14 out of 25 beds were taken by ketamine users. As we walk through the corridors, Birchwood manager Jo Moore tells me that in more than two decades of working in healthcare, she's never dealt with a challenge as big as the wave of people she's seeing addicted to ketamine, arriving with extreme and complex health issues. "They're all presenting with urinary incontinence, some can't even walk, they've lost their muscle tone, some are in wheelchairs, and the crippling pain they're going through is significant," she says. As well as running Birchwood, Jo speaks about the drug at conferences and holds a weekly video call, offering support for a growing group of parents whose children are addicted. I also met Callum, who describes himself simply as "just a lad from Cheshire ways". While speaking, he often pauses for thought, struck by how quickly his life has taken a turn since his addiction began three years ago. When his dad died following a struggle with alcoholism, Callum, who had been his carer, turned to ketamine. Until then, the 24-year-old had only taken the drug at festivals, but it quickly took over his life. "I was so out of it constantly," he says. "I don't remember the last three years properly because of just, you know, you've taken it the whole time." Daily use nearly cost Callum his life. He had multiple organ issues and weighed just six stone by the time Jo, who knew his family, told his mother that he needed to come to rehab. Callum's experience is a reminder of how hard it can be to break a dependency on ketamine. As an anaesthetic, it creates a vicious cycle. Users need it to help ease the pain it causes them. "It's only once you get off the ketamine you realise the pain that you've got and the problems that you've got," Callum tells me. "When you're on it, you know you've sort of got pains, but you don't think they're that bad. "People I know drank for 30, 40 years and my liver is worse than theirs, just from ketamine alone." 'Ketamine destroyed my life' Nicole also turned to ketamine because it felt like a way out. She'd had a difficult childhood, been in an abusive relationship as an adult and struggled with mental health issues her whole life. In a moment of blunt honesty, she tells me she does not regret taking ketamine. "If I didn't take ketamine in that period of time, I wouldn't be here," she says. "It was a coping mechanism for a while, before it destroyed my life." As her bladder and kidneys deteriorated, Nicole was taken to hospital several times, often treated by medics who could not understand the problems caused by heavy ketamine use. On one occasion, she was sent home with chlamydia tablets. On another, she had an invasive kidney procedure with no anaesthetic, because doctors were concerned about giving her pain relief due to her ketamine use. Becoming more animated, Nicole tells me: "To be in that situation where you need help, you don't know what's going on yourself, the only place you can go to is the hospital and not even they know what is going on with you. That is like a complete state of isolation, loneliness." Nicole now starts her days in severe agony. She says the chronic pain will last the rest of her life, and pauses at one point in conversation to tell me her bladder is spasming as we speak. Despite how difficult the last few years have been for them, Nicole and Callum both have hopes for their lives beyond Birchwood. In the months after I met him, Callum successfully completed his detox and rehab. He has also made good on a promise to "get his life back on track" by finding a full-time job. Things have been more difficult for Nicole, who is still in Birchwood and has been in and out of hospital for a range of bladder and kidney complications. She is still waiting to find out whether her bladder will be removed. Nicole has made it her mission to raise awareness, posting regularly on TikTok about her appointments and her day-to-day life. Her ultimate hope is to one day join Jo in delivering talks across the country about the drug and its dangers. Life-changing injuries within a year Away from Birchwood, the struggles of people like Callum and Nicole are also being felt in the NHS. Alison Downey is a consultant urologist at Pinderfields Hospital in West Yorkshire, where "ketamine bladder" has become an increasingly common phrase to describe the severe damage the drug can do. "We've seen an explosion in numbers over the past, particularly two to three years," she says. "Maybe about four or five years ago we would have one or two cases a month, we're now seeing eight or nine a month." Ms Downey says while urologists are continuing to learn about the drug's impact, there is one certainty: ketamine causes complex challenges for medics. "There's no other drug that does this amount of damage this quickly to your kidneys and your bladder," she says. "We obviously see patients who have drug addiction problems from heroin and cocaine in A&E or on the wards, but ketamine has this very specific, quick damage to the kidneys and bladder specifically that we just don't see in any other drug use." With balloons and a jug, Miss Downey explains the impact the drug can have on someone's bladder, reducing its capacity. "We know that the average (bladder) capacity of a person that's been using ketamine for a long amount of time is about 100ml, which is about the size of this balloon," she says. "If you compare that to a normal adult bladder, which holds about 500ml, so five of these balloons, you can see that the capacity is severely reduced. That can result in needing to go to the toilet every 15 to 20 minutes throughout the day or night." Framing the issues being seen on the frontline are the ongoing discussions around reclassification. Earlier this year, the government announced it would look into the possibility of making ketamine a Class A drug, which would carry greater penalties for making and selling it. Dr Caroline Copeland is a senior lecturer in pharmacology and toxicology at King's College London and also the director of the National Programme on Substance Use Mortality. For her, this debate is nuanced and needs to go beyond criminalisation. "I think that instead of necessarily focusing on the punitive measures, which is what comes with the reclassification, we need to be thinking more about how we can actually spend that time and money towards helping the people who are using ketamine and education programmes to stop people starting to use ketamine in the first place," she said. Dr Copeland also thinks reclassification needs to be a process that takes into account the wider context, because this is a drug that is commonplace and being used casually by many, without significant health consequences. She added: "Since ketamine was last reclassified from C to B, the landscape of its use has changed somewhat. "There's much more recreational use in a younger demographic. So we need to do a comprehensive assessment of its harms to determine whether it warrants escalating to being a Class A substance." However, for those whose lives have been changed by casual use spiralling into addiction, solutions are needed urgently. I can still remember Jo Moore's words as she walked me out of Birchwood on my first day of filming this story. She sees this as an issue that needs tackling, with a national framework to bring systems together. "We're really trying to fight, because we see the damage," she says. "I've looked after heroin addicts and after 20 years of them using heroin, they don't have anything related to the harm that we've got now for the ketamine users, only after a very short time. "And I think that's what's been so shocking about seeing these ketamine users come through. They can use ketamine for 10 months, two years, and have life-changing injuries. "That's why we're fighting for this. I think that we have all been very slow to react as a nation to these health concerns." Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@ in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.
Times
3 hours ago
- Times
I was a Gen Z screen addict. Then I took drastic action
A lot can happen in seven hours. You could fly from London to Dubai, get through a full school day or enjoy a luxurious night's sleep. Me? I used to spend seven hours a day staring at my phone screen. Now I average less than one. I'm 22 and I've spent an alarming percentage of my life glued to my phone. It was everything — my entertainment, my social lifeline, my procrastination tool, my 3am therapist. I'm far from alone. Data shows that Generation Z's daily screen time is on average more than nine hours a day, which is more than any other generation. That's about 136 days a year spent staring at a screen. Meanwhile, the NHS reports a steep rise in mental health disorders among young people, which tracks closely with the explosion in digital device use.
Daily Mail
15 hours ago
- Daily Mail
I gave up my dream at 29 to look after my sick mom - three things no one tells you about caring for a relative
Simone Heng was at the peak of her career in Dubai when she got a phone call from her sister while she was working a giveaway at the mall for her radio job. 'Simone, where are you?' her sister asked from Perth, Australia. 'I think you should come home.' Her mother had a stroke related to her rare genetic condition and was suffering from paralysis. They had found her mother lying at the bottom of the shower. They had no idea how long she had been there. 'I'll never forget that,' Simone, 41, told Daily Mail. 'I remember just that guilt of like - how long was she at the bottom of the shower? How long until someone knocked the door down?' As she hopped on a flight from Dubai to Perth, she knew her life was about to change. That trip in 2013 was only supposed to be two weeks long, but when she looked at her mother lying in her hospital bed, looking gray with eyes unable to focus and suffering from arm spasms, she knew things were not going to get any better. 'I remember seeing her in that state and going: "Your life is going to change forever now,"' she told Daily Mail. 'I'm the shield now, and I think that's really when we, as children, become our parent's parent, and the role flips.' At 29, Simone, an international broadcaster who worked at Virgin Radio Dubai, embarked on a 1.5-year journey of caretaking, one filled with such isolation and grief that it knocked her off her feet. Now, she has penned a book called Let's talk About Loneliness and hopes to warn others of the unexpected toll of caring for an ill parent. Simone packed her bags and headed back home to Perth while they moved her mother in a care facility. Despite the help, Simone and her sister were left to deal with their mother's belongings at her home and figure out the logistics of unexpectedly having to care for their parent. The sisters split the work. Her sister would focus on the logistics of care - physiotherapy costs, arranging massages, and subsidizing help - while Simone would take care of the emotional aspects, such as bringing her mother happiness. But the first obstacle Simone faced, however, was being in charge of downsizing her mother's home. And it's now the foremost thing she'd tell others going through the same thing: 'Number one, if your parents are still cognitive and you can convince them to downsize, please do it. 'The last thing you need is the logistical nightmare of cleaning that house when they're already incapacitated.' Despite her mom being in a wheelchair, her mind was there and it held fast to her beloved items, causing 'friction' between the mother and daughter. 'The brain hadn't degenerated yet. The body was in a wheelchair, but the brain was fighting about the belongings and things like that,' Simone told Daily Mail. Your life is going to change forever now. I'm the shield now, and I think that's really when we, as children, become our parent's parent, and the role flips Author Simone Heng The second thing she found herself unexpectedly experiencing was watching her mother go from a fully capable adult to needing the same level of help as a child. 'I saw my mom's nappy being changed in front of me,' she said. 'You have to prepare yourself for when that change happens, when they become the baby - especially if you have very authoritarian parents like I did with mom.' 'You emotionally need to prepare yourself for that loss of dignity and watching them kind of melt down. And I wish I had been prepared for that. I wish someone else had said: "Look, you need to just watch out for this."' But her biggest problem, and third thing she warns people about when they are beginning to look after a relative, is the isolation of caregiving. She woke up every day thinking only of her mom and her needs. As time went on, Simone lost herself. She stopped putting on makeup and stopped caring how she looked. 'By the end of the one and a half years, I just completely didn't even look in a mirror anymore,' she said. And for Simone, who wasn't even 30 at the time, she felt so alone in the world of caregiving. Only now, as her friends enter their 40s, are they beginning to experience what she went through a decade ago. And unlike death, where the heart heals with time and the physical burden gets lighter, it doesn't with chronic illness. 'You see it at the beginning with - when dad passed away, people brought food. They understood that someone had passed away. And eventually it's finite,' she explained to Daily Mail. 'When someone has that long-term chronic illness, there is really no endpoint. And so the community is amazing at the beginning, but really long-term, it's on you as the children.' And her own family perceived her as young and vibrant and fully capable of handling the pressures and duties of caretaking. But all it did to her was make her feel 'incredibly, incredibly lonely.' She still, to this day, feels guilt for the resentment she felt at the time and grieves for the version of herself that she lost. In Dubai she was a highly successful broadcaster whose face was easily recognizable in the emirate. She once featured on a billboard for Dove outside the 7-star Burj Al Arab hotel. 'I grieved it for years afterwards. I think in the moment you're just in fight or flight, and I was culturally conditioned to think that this is what good Asian daughters do, and this is unquestioned,' she said. 'And it had been taught to me from the time I was young. My mom had said it to me over and over again: "You know we don't put our people in homes." This is what you do. 'And so I was unquestioning in that kind of obedience of programming. But it wasn't until I realized how much the whole experience changed me at a cellular level, and when I went back to work.' Simone fled Perth for Singapore after a year and a half. She had hit her breaking point and a psychiatrist told her she had to leave before it was too late. 'My mental health got really bad,' she said. 'The psych just said: "You know you're not born to do this," and that's why [I left]. 'I still carry guilt this day that I'm not made of better stuff, more selfless stuff, and he's like: "You know, you've got to put the face mask on. You're a creative, and you need to go back to a place where you can do that." She chose Singapore due to its proximity to Australia, allowing her to return every 90 days to visit her mother. Her sister, who still lives in Australia, now does the brunt of the caregiving, but for Simone, this system works better. 'It's still difficult, you know, undoing that guilt and that programming,' Simone told Daily Mail. From 2015 to 2017, Simone went to therapy to work through the experience and was able to come out on the other side. Now, she advises children who become caretakers to join support groups and to give themselves grace for the guilt they feel. 'Give yourself grace,' she said. Despite how difficult the experience was, it gave her a perspective that is now her 'north star.' 'No one is talking about their job, how much money they earn, like what watch they have,' she said. 'People are just pining away for human connection. And I think that that was very inspiring to the work that I do now, we're really just here for connection and a good time. 'And that, that I carry every day. It kind of is the north star of how I make all my decisions.'
