Soldier ingests bath salts; police warn of dangers

Riley County police are using an incident involving an active duty military man and his suspected use of bath salts to illustrate a growing trend of people getting high using concoctions of dangerous substances.

Lt. Josh Kyle, public information officer for the Riley County Police Department, said officers were dispatched about 8 a.m. Monday after an anonymous person called in to report a friend was behaving in a strange manner.

Officers made contact with the person in question at a south-central Manhattan location.

“The soldier began acting in a bizarre fashion,” Kyle said.

Police aren’t releasing the exact location or the person’s name. Kyle said the man is a 22-year-old active duty military man stationed at Fort Riley.

Kyle said The soldier’s initial responses were slurred and slow — as if drunk — but then he became excitable and paranoid. The man then began to make bizarre religious statements and stopped making sense.

“It progressed from there,” Kyle said.

Preliminary indications, including a couple of pieces of information police obtained, Kyle said, point toward the soldier having ingested bath salts.

Bath salts, Kyle explained, typically are brightly colored capsules with some sort of creature or animal on them. Bath salts is a generic term for all kinds of substances both legal and illegal. The chemical concoctions are placed inside capsules that dissolve into a person’s system upon being ingested.

Kyle said what is dangerous about bath salts, beyond the fact they normally contain illegal substances, is that they are concoctions. Those who purchase them, he said, have no idea what is in them. Many different concoctions exist.

Several symptoms arise from swallowing bath salts, Kyle said, including blood pressure issues, becoming excitable, paranoid and eventually becoming delusional or making hallucinating-type comments.

Kyle said the police department’s drug unit has seen people distributing bath salts in the Manhattan area. Though, he added, cocaine and methamphetamine remain a greater threat to the community.

“Bath salts are an ever-growing risk and something to watch out for,” Kyle said.

The soldier who was suspected of using bath salts was taken into protective police custody and then taken to a hospital for treatment.

As of Tuesday, Kyle said there is no indication the man is facing pending criminal charges. He said the situation was medical in nature and the primary intention of officers was to get him medical assistance.

People can be taken into protective police custody under state law when they are believed to be a danger to themselves or others.

Kyle said the police department is using the incident to alert people to the dangers of bath salts and the severe reactions they may cause.

“It can very easily create a medical emergency,” he said.