Utica (WSYR-TV) – Utica Police reported that they responded to three incidents linked to bath salts over the weekend, including one in which a woman was running into traffic wearing only her underwear and foaming at the mouth before becoming violent with police.
Bath salts is the nickname for a class of synthetic drug that has been connected to several violent and bizarre incidents throughout Central New York and beyond recently.
The incident occurred around 7:33 p.m. when police responded to a report of an emotionally disturbed woman. When they arrived, the woman was running into traffic in the 1100 block Bleecker Street naked from the waist up. The woman told police that her clothes were electrocuting her and that she had metal inside of her.
While foaming at the mouth and becoming violent, police say she kept trying to run front of cars. Police had to retrain her until an ambulance arrived. She was taken to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital for treatment and told police she had used bath salts before the incident, eating the substance after failing to inject it with a syringe.
Also on Friday, police and fire personnel responded to an incident on Stephens Drive in which a 20-year-old male said he thought he was having a heart attack after snorting bath salts.
On Saturday, police were called to a residence on Schuyler Street where a male was on a roof. Police said the 39-year-old male was “sweating profusely and talking very fast.”
Police say the man told an officer that he was “going to get ambushed by all the people near him” and that people were coming to the house to beat him up.
Police were eventually able talk the man off of the roof. He was taken into custody and told police he had been regularly taking bath salts and had not slept in three days. He was taken to St. Elizabeth’s.
