Teenage schoolboy collapses at school after taking legal high

A 15-year-old schoolboy has collapsed during a school lunch break after taking a legal high drug.

The pupil, who has not been named, attends Grove Academy in Dundee. He left the school during his lunch break to go to a wooded area nearby where he could smoke a legal high drug. He collapsed on his way back to school, but temporarily recovered. Upon arriving back at the school, he collapsed once again in the playground and vomited violently. A friend of the pupil raised the alarm and alerted teachers to the boy’s condition. The boy was rushed to the A&E at Ninewells and the school informed his parents.

The boy’s mother said: “I had voicemails from the school saying he had collapsed twice and that they thought he had taken a legal high. The messages were haunting because you could hear the fear in their voices. When I got to the hospital, I was told he had been very lucky. His heart was stable, but it was beating much faster than it should be. He also had problems with his circulation, resulting in cold patches all over his body.”

The boy said that he had only taken four puffs of the legal high substance; however, these four puffs caused a severe reaction. His mother was horrified by the easy availability of the drugs and stated that she had seen them in shops labelled as plant food.

The schoolboy has now recovered and has returned to school.