This story saddens me. So many kids are using drugs that can kill them and others. The following article tells the same thing. A good kid, high school jock, good family. Sometimes you see the signs, sometimes not. I don't know if this young man's parents saw the signs. If you are a parent and see the signs, just know there are many other's that you aren't. Get help before you bury your own.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli ... olo05.htmlTeen driver used inhalants before crash, detectives say
Phil Staun, 16, was a junior at Desert Mountain High School.
Emily Bittner
The Arizona Republic
Aug. 5, 2003 12:00 AM
The Scottsdale teenager whose car crossed a median and killed a Mesa man on Friday was inhaling aerosol chemicals with his friends while he was driving, investigators say.
"Two of three survivors admitted to using it and stated that the driver had used this as well while he was driving," Sgt. Paul Chagolla of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office said Monday.
The teens were inhaling Dust-Off, an aerosol computer-cleaning product.
Phil Staun, 16, a Desert Mountain High School junior, was driving his parents' Cadillac to Payson with friends to go cliff-jumping. He veered across the median near Shea and Saguaro boulevards in Fountain Hills and hit 38-year-old Martin Bonilla's truck head-on. Staun and Bonilla, father of three, were pronounced dead at the scene.
Staun's father, P.J. Staun, declined comment Monday evening.
"Kids don't understand how dangerous Dust-Off is," said Harvey Weiss, executive director of the National Inhalant Prevention Coalition. He receives more than 100 phone calls a year from parents whose children died while "huffing," the slang term for inhaling chemicals.
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The high from Dust-Off is brief, but its effects are much like alcohol, he said. During and after the initial euphoria, users experience a lack of coordination and concentration, he said.
The chemicals in Dust-Off replace oxygen in the brain and raise blood pressure and the pulse rate and sometimes dilate the eyes, Chagolla said. Delirium and loss of consciousness also can occur, he said.
"Inhalant use and abuse is a silent epidemic," Weiss said, pointing to data that show inhalants are the first substance many children will abuse. "Far more young people use it than people realize. It cuts across all socioeconomic levels."
The Medical Examiner's Office is still conducting toxicology tests on Staun, Chagolla said.
