Last week, the OBX Hospital in Manteo became the first medical facility in the country to use marijuana to induce a medical coma in a patient. The patient, a 26 year old male from Colington had suffered traumatic head injury during a surfing accident. Inducing a medical coma was used in conjunction with cryotherapy to reduce life-threatening brain swelling.
Dr. William Nelson was the lead physician on the team treating the Colington man. He stated that the patient himself requested the unprecedented procedure.
“He was dinged up pretty good when they brought him in,” said Dr. Nelson. “But he had wits enough to refuse a more traditional treatment regimen. He insisted that weed was natural because it grew in the ground and did not carry the risks of opiates.”
The medical team faced a number of challenges in inducing the coma, not the least of which was designing an effective delivery system from scratch. Using a neck brace and plastic bag, Dr. Nelson created a pot “head tent” that allowed doctors to suffuse the patient in marijuana smoke. A second problem arose from an unlikely source: the patient himself.
“The patient had a rather lengthy history with recreational marijuana use,” explained Dr. Nelson. “We had to get the dankest, I mean the absolute stickiest of the icky, to induce a coma.” Fortunately the doctors were able to procure the drug from the myriad of local distributors.
The Colington man is well on his way to making a full recovery. As news of the successful new treatment spread, the OBX Hospital has noted a 420% increase in head trauma cases, many of them, the hospital reports as probably “self-induced.”
Local cook, Dusty Hills, apparently took a “header” while in the walk-in, and was seeking the treatment so he could “get twirlt” while he waited on his worker’s comp check.