A Florida woman has warned of the dangers of psychedelics after she fell down a stairwell during a drug-induced frenzy and was left paralyzed from the armpits down.
Sheryn Jamelle Brown, now 38, from Orlando, had taken three hits of the drug LSD when she plunged from the top of a flight of stairs, breaking two vertebrae in her spine.
The devastating act was fueled by a sense of disorientation and feeling unsafe in her surroundings.
‘I felt a jolt of fear go through my body like a lightning strike,’ she said.
Today, Sheryn now lives in a nursing home and requires full-time care with daily tasks like bathing, dressing herself and preparing food.
Sheryn Jamelle Brown, now 38, said she considered medically assisted suicide as she endured months of physical therapy following the injury that left her paralyzed
She sees herself as a ‘warning’ to others, not only of the dangers of drugs, but also of the risks of being too eager to please others.
‘My desire to please, my ego, and peer pressure all played a role in me becoming a quadriplegic,’ she said.
‘I want to be that warning to everyone else to respect themselves at all times.’
On Valentine’s Day 2016, Sheryn, then 30, was on a trip with friends and her ex-girlfriend in India when she took three hits of the hallucinogen LSD.
She had taken the drug twice before, but felt hesitant to do it again.
Sheryn said her partner pressured her into taking the hits one hour apart. While she felt a ‘profound’ sense of openness and love, she became disoriented and fearful of her surroundings.
She said: ‘I told my ex-girlfriend and the other girls I was afraid for my own safety. But my ex-girlfriend insisted we continue on to a night market.’
Sheryn, pictured here in the hospital shortly after her fall, is one of the 18,000 Americans who suffer a spinal cord injury every year
‘While I want to be that warning to everyone else to respect themselves at all times, my journey is more than just highlighting the dangers of drugs,’ Sheryn said
But, in a state of disorientation, she threw herself over the rail of stairs leading up to the loft bed in her hotel room, fracturing the C6 and C7 vertebrae in her neck.
‘I woke up, still tripping, bottom-naked and covered in bruises and scrapes, with two black eyes, and unable to move except to slap my right hand,’ Sheryn said.
She became one of the 18,000 Americans who suffer spinal cord injuries every year, or roughly 54 per 1million people. According to the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, about two percent of the population has some form of paralysis.
Spinal cord injury is the second most common cause of paralysis in the US, closely following stroke.
Sheryn said she had tried LSD twice before in her life and was hesitant to do it again, but succumbed to peer pressure she felt from her former partner
Prior to the fall, Sheryn was an avid runner. Now, she lives in a care home and relies on 24-hour support for all of her everyday tasks
Sheryl says her partner refused to drive her to the hospital and when she eventually got there, a surgeon had to fly in from five hours away to offer specialist treatment.
‘The doctors and others were disgusted with me for doing drugs,’ she said. ‘My guilt and shame deepened rapidly.’
Despite struggling with a deep depression and suicidal feelings in the months after her accident, Sheryn said the support from her family and friends gave her a ‘new direction’.
‘They all pushed me to choose life, no matter what,’ she said.
She is also learning to come to terms with how she became paralyzed and is in rehabilitation therapy.
Rehab after paralysis usually aims to improve mobility and help people learn how to adapt to life without full movement of their body.
LSD, or lysergic acid diethylamide, has psychedelic effects because it interferes with the release of the hormone serotonin in the brain, which is responsible for regulating mood and perceptions.
It is thought the change in serotonin may trigger benefits, such as boosting mood and easing anxiety.
The way in which the drug binds to cells in the brain can also modify communication between neurons, producing visual and auditory hallucinations.
LSD is currently illegal, however, it has been the subject of clinical trials investigating its potential use for relieving anxiety.
In March, the FDA granted a form of the psychedelic ‘breakthrough therapy’ status, which speeds up the review and approval process of new promising drugs.
This followed the results of a trial of 194 volunteers who found 100 micrograms of LSD — the same as the average recreational dose — significantly reduced anxiety in half of the patients who took the drug.
However, there has been fierce criticism of the potential use of LSD for medical purposes due to serious risks.
A disturbing condition called hallucinogen persisting perception disorder, which involves chronic and sporadic hallucinations, can arise after just one dose of LSD.
Use of the drug is also known to increase the risk of developing serious psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia.
