A young Northern Irish woman is warning people of the danger of ‘needle sticks’ after she was targeted while queuing at a nightclub this week.
Katie Stephenson, an accounting student at the University of Dundee in Scotland, was having a night out with her friends when she thought she had been hit with an injection.
The 19-year-old was lining up with his friends at a club in the city around midnight on Tuesday.
However, she does not remember anything about the night that followed and woke up to find a red puncture mark on her leg.
Her leg was also severely bruised around the injection site area.
Katie, from Bangor in Co Down, She is the latest woman to warn against needle piercing Which has become prominent in the UK and Ireland in recent weeks.
(Photo: Daily Record / Introduction)
She believes a needle pierced her skin through a pair of shorts she was wearing at night.
«I’ve been talking to friends, thinking about my own business, and that’s the last thing I remember,» She told the Daily Record.
«I woke up in a panic and knew right away that I had been hit with sharp blows – but I didn’t know at the time it was a needle.»
Katie was behaving «irregularly» by the time she reached the top of the nightclub’s queue, according to her friends, but was denied entry because she had forgotten her ID.
One of her friends managed to get home, and by this point Carrie was experiencing mood swings, was «crying hysterically» and was refusing to go to bed.
When she woke up in the morning, the student was sweating profusely so she went to a nearby A&E where doctors confirmed that the wound on her outer thigh corresponded to a syringe.
(Photo: Katie Stevenson/Facebook)
«My friends say I cry hysterically for no reason, like someone dies, for two hours, and I had two panic attacks,» she said.
«I couldn’t remember the names of my flatmates, or I gave them the wrong names, and I got injured in the fall. My flatmates almost called an ambulance.»
Katie is now wary of going out to nightclubs again after the scary incident.
«The fear is that you now have to find yourself on the waiting lists, regardless of being in a club per se,» she added.
“We girls were talking about it [spiking] And going out wasn’t fun anymore.
“You can protect yourself from a spiked drink, but what can you do if you’re standing in line and someone has a needle?
«I was lucky to be able to get away from the whole situation.»
The Northern Irish woman hopes that by sharing her experience, others can avoid going through the same horrific experience.