‘We Were Ticking Time Bombs': Friends Describe Experience Having Drinks Drugged

What was meant to be a casual night out in Boston turned into a terrifying ordeal for two friends who shared their story with the NBC10 Investigators. They both asked to remain anonymous.

“I really did not know if I was going to wake up.”

“I thought that we were both going to die.”

Both women believe their drinks were drugged back in early May.

“I woke up throwing up.”

“I don't remember much, but I just was on the floor. I just landed on the floor.”

Their story, one of several circulating on social media, as more and more people post about similar experiences across the state.

“I was in the stairwell of my apartment, and I looked down at the landing below and saw her halfway in the door.”

“I couldn't move my arms or legs, and my eyes weren't really opening.”

“I looked down at my hands. and I was like covered in blood. I had apparently fallen and hit my head.”

They said they were only at the bar for about an hour, when they knew something was off. The last thing they said they remembered was taking a shot from a group of guys.

“But as soon as the shots were taken, it was literally like mass exodus. They were all gone.”

Shortly after, both women said their bodies started to shut down. At one point, one of them said, she couldn’t even speak.

“We were ticking time bombs.”

“And like seeing quadruple, like, I couldn't focus on anyone that was in front of me and I just knew that it, like, felt weird. Like, we, we just knew that that wasn't normal for our bodies.”

“She wasn't really, like, making eye contact with me. And so I was like, OK, we got to go.”

After a wobbly walk home, the two friends said they had to hold each other up and count each step out loud until they got back to the apartment. A few hours later, a neighbor found them outside and called police.

“When her neighbor started to pick me up, I could feel myself being lifted, but I still couldn't move my body.”

“At least two and a half hours of unaccounted time that we were just unconscious in the doorway of her apartment.”

The women said their symptoms ranged from memory loss, vomiting, no feeling in their arms and legs, chattering teeth, and body tremors.

“I feel like my body knew that my legs were going to give out soon.”

“Both of our teeth were chattering, like shaking uncontrollably. And when they put me in the ambulance, I had to have heated blankets.”

One of the women was taken to the hospital and treated for the lacerations in her head. She said she had to have four staples put in to stop the bleeding.

“They did all the regular like blood panels when I was admitted, and they did like an awesome job, like treating my head injury, but they didn't really give me good answers towards the roofies test.”

The NBC10 Investigators spoke with Dr. Matthew Mostofi, the associate chief of Emergency Medicine at Tufts Medical Center. He did not treat the women, but explained there’s no real “test” when it comes to roofies.

“We would test them for routine drugs of abuse, which are your cocaine, fentanyl, opiates, marijuana, alcohol, barbiturates. Those are the types of drug tests that we have access to. The higher-level tests, like Ketamine, Rohypnol - those are very specific tests and we're unable to test for them,” Mostofi said.

“The reason people go out and use these drugs as opposed to another drug, is that they're undetectable. They're hard to detect with routine drug testing.”

Another woman we spoke with who did not want to go on camera is a registered nurse. When she was roofied last month, she went to the hospital and asked for a toxicology test, which showed she was positive for Benzodiazepines and Ketamine.

“If there is an allegation of an intoxicant used, we will send blood and urine samples to a state lab. And the state lab will perform very sophisticated testing to identify a specific drug of abuse,” Mostofi explained.

The two women who believed they were drugged in Boston said they were told their tests would go out to the state lab, and that they would hear back in the next couple weeks. They said, so far, no one has reached out.

We checked with police departments in Boston, Somerville, Cambridge, Salem and Worcester. They all told us they are aware of the warning circulating on social media – but have received few to no formal reports, suggesting drink-spiking is either underreported, or difficult to track. Boston police issued a formal warning about the reports of drugged drinks last month. Police on Cape Cod issued a similar warning. 

Coming up in Part 2 of our Investigative Series: Drugged Drinks, we talk to a local bar about what they’re doing to keep patrons safe. Part 2 airs Friday, June 17, at 11 p.m. on NBC10 Boston.