WARNING Graphic Images, - Don’t be eating whilst reading this!

Here we can see the face of Ronald Poppo, the 65-year-old Miami homeless man whose face was munched on during a vicious attack on the 26^th May 2012.  In the 18 minute attack, 31 year old Rudy Eugene, tried his utmost to bite the face off Poppo, - eating half of the man’s face, including his left eye.  His ears were untouched, as Eugene used them to hold his victims head in place and pinned to the ground.  "When Poppo arrived you could not make out his facial features," said Dr. Nicolas Namias, chief of trauma at Miami Jackson Memorial Hospital.  His left eye was destroyed.  His right eye is still there but they covered it with a flap taken from skin from his forehead and scalp. "He had wounds involving the forehead, both eyes and the cheek.  We did skin grafts to his wounds, which are still healing and evolving.  He is missing his eyebrows and his eyes.  It is hard to see who he is," He suffered a brain injury, similar to those experiences by those involved in car accidents.  According to doctors, both his ears remain intact.  "Fifty percent of his face is gone, and he is missing all the features that would make him recognisable," said Dr. Wrood Kassira, Jackson’s chief of plastic surgeon.

In the below video, which wasn't shown on TV, you get a different angle of the two mens bodies;

Police say 31 year-old Rudy Eugene randomly met Poppo on the side of a heavily trafficked Miami thoroughfare during Memorial Day weekend that Poppo will never forget.  Police believe it was a chance encounter that occurred after Eugene dumped his car in South Beach and walked 3 ½ miles across a causeway, stripping off his clothes in broad daylight and then attacking Poppo.

Firstly I wouldn't recommend taking the following drug, but one of the reasons I decided to write-up this blog, was to help dispel certain myths that surround this case: For it's been widely reported that police officials continue to speculate that the dangerous new street drug “bath salts” ^[1][2]may have played a role in the attack.  

Now I’m not sure whether this is ‘scaremongering’, as we know the “authorities” do tend to react and go over the top on something they know little about.  Was it because it was reported on the 16^th January 2012 [2] “The use of street drugs known as “bath salts” can lead to flesh-eating disease, a new study warns.”  that the police have got their wires crossed? - As hang on a minute, this only happened after a person took the drug, and it was their 'own skin' that was experiencing ‘necrotising fasciitis’ caused by an intramuscular injection of “bath salts”. 

Which means the flesh was eating ‘itself’, not the person gnawing away at their own skin or someone else’s, - like what Eugene did to poor old Poppo. 

So-called bath salts are sold as synthetic powders that "often contain various amphetamine-like chemicals," according to the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, which in February warned that injections might cause the ravaging skin condition.  Bath salts are sold under a variety of brand or street names, including: Aura, Black Rob, Bliss, Blizzard, Bloom, Blue Silk, Cloud 9, Drone, Hurricane Charlie, Ivory Wav, Lovey Dovey, Lunar Wave, Maddie, MCAT, Meow Meow, Monkey Dust, MTV, Ocean Snow, Peeve, Purple Wave, PV, Red Dove, Scarface, Snow Leopard, Stardust, Super Coke, Vanilla Sky, White Lightning and Zoom^.[2][4][9]

Dr. Russell R. Russo and colleagues saw the effects firsthand as they treated a 34-year-old woman who developed forearm pain and redness after she attended a party.  She didn’t have any other symptoms but did have a small red puncture wound on her arm.  The women eventually admitted that she injected bath salts two days before her symptoms began.  The doctors re-examined her and determined that she had necrotizing fasciitis. The disease progressed so rapidly that the doctors had to amputate the woman’s arm, shoulder and collarbone and perform a radical mastectomy. The study was published in the January issue of the journal Orthopedics. ^[10]  

Necrotizing Fasciitis

“Despite the drug’s legal status, it must be treated as illicit, and one must be suspicious when examining a patient with this clinical history because the diagnosis of flesh-eating bacteria can masquerade as abscesses and cellulitis,” the authors said in a journal news release.

 It’s said autopsy results on Eugene, did not reveal any drugs in his system, however toxicology results have not been released.  Though saying that “bath salts” cannot be smelled by detection dogs^[4] and will not be found in typical urinalysis,^[5] although they can be detected in urine and hair analyses using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry.^[6][7] Distributors can camouflage the drug as everyday substances like fertiliser or insect repellent.^[4][8]

Rudy Eugene was eventually shot and killed by police after they say their repeated pleas to get him to stop eating Poppo’s face were met with animalistic growls.  In quite a matter of fact manner; Dr. Namias went on to admit, the police may have also shot Poppo in the chest, [May of? Wouldn’t there have been a bullet somewhere, in his chest or on the ground at the scene of the crime?], but the injuries were not severe. “There was no ill effect from it.  It was a simple injury.  It was nowhere near the worst of his problems.”

[1] ·  ^ DEA: Chemicals Used in "Bath Salts” Now Under Federal Control and R...

[2] ·  ^ ^{a b} DEA Drug Fact Sheet

[3] http://www.drugs.com/news/bath-salts-leads-flesh-eating-35901.html

[4] ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} Black, Matthew (25 June 2012). "What are 'bath salts'? A look at Canada's newest illegal drug". CBC News (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation).

[5] ·  ^ Winder GS, Stern N, Hosanagar A (March 2012). "Are "Bath Salts" the next generation of stimulant abuse?". J Subst Abuse Treat. doi:10.1016/j.jsat.2012.02.003. PMID 22445773. edit

[6] ·  ^ R. Baselt, Disposition of Toxic Drugs and Chemicals in Man, 9th edition, Biomedical Publications, Seal Beach, CA, 2011, pp. 992–993. http://www.biomedicalpublications.com/mephedrone.pdf

[7] ·  ^ Rust KY, Baumgartner MR, Dally AM, Kraemer T (2012). "Prevalence of new psychoactive substances: A retrospective study in hair". Drug Testing and Analysis 4 (6): 402–408. doi:10.1002/dta.1338. PMID 22522922. edit

[8] ·  ^ 'Bath salts,' synthetic drugs targeted in Schneiderman lawsuits

[9] ·  ^ Street Names and Brand Names for Bath Salts

[10] ·  ^ ^{a b c d e f} Spiller HA, Ryan ML, Weston RG, Jansen J (2011). "Clinical experience with and analytical confirmation of "bath salts" and "legal highs" (synthetic cathinones) in the United States". Clinical Toxicology 49 (6): 499–505. doi:10.3109/15563650.2011.590812. PMID 21824061. edit

[11] ·  ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Coppola M, Mondola R (2012). "Synthetic cathinones: Chemistry, pharmacology and toxicology of a new class of designer drugs of abuse marketed as "bath salts" or "plant food"". Toxicology Letters 211 (2): 144–149. doi:10.1016/j.toxlet.2012.03.009. PMID 22459606. edit

[12] ^ Morris, H. (5 April 2010). "Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia. Mephedrone: the phantom menace". Vice Magazine. Retrieved 2010-07-04.