Warner Robins teen wakes up on a ventilator after taking toxic street pills

June 08--Aniya Green woke up alert but on a ventilator at the Houston Medical Center after taking toxic street pills, her mom said.

"She was a victim of this street drug that's out here right now," Schneita Green said as she sat on the sofa in her Warner Robins home Wednesday afternoon, still wearing a hospital visitor's badge.

"She took some of the medicines and it caused her to have a respiratory failure."

Aniya is the eldest of her 11 children. She's expected to come off a ventilator soon.

"She is responding," Green said. "She is able to communicate through text messages -- and she's asking for McDonald's."

Her mom chuckled.

"But she's doing well. ... It's a long process, but I think that she's gonna ... get better."

But back up to late Monday afternoon, when Green got a terrifying call from another daughter: Aniya isn't breathing.

"I was devastated, shocked and I felt hopeless," said Green, who prayed earnestly for her daughter.

A 911 call summoned help.

Green arrived home just before the ambulance pulled away to take Aniya to the hospital.

"Through prayers and family and the hands of the nurses and doctors there, she was not a victim that died on it but she was a victim that went through it."

"It" is a yet unknown toxin in a street pill that's been disguised as the pain killer Percocet. The toxic and potentially deadly pills have been linked to multiple overdoes and maybe four deaths in Middle Georgia.

Talking with her daughter's friend and tracking her movement by searching for clues on her daughter's cellphone, Green learned that Aniya and a girlfriend had gotten hold of street pills. The teenagers thought the pills were either Percocet or the anti-anxiety medication Xanax, Green said.

Aniya took two of the pills. Her daughter's friend was also hospitalized, Green said.

A hospital nurse told Green that several other cases had been reported among young people with similar symptoms.

"From the information they got from the Macon hospital along with the CDC, they was explaining that it was a drug that was coming in this area that has looked and wanted to be a Percocet pill or Xanax pill but was something that was synthetic," Green said.

"And that's what was causing the people to have that type of reaction and having to be hospitalized, and some having be sedated (into a medically induced) coma as well as some have died," she said.

Tuesday, health care leaders and law enforcement held a news conference to warn people about the toxic street drug. Anyone with information on the toxic drugs or who is distributing them is asked call Macon Regional CrimeStoppers hotline at 1-877-682-7463.

Green said she plans to have a heart-to-heart talk with her daughter once they're through the crisis. She offered this advice for other parents.

"Talk with your children about what's going on," Green said. "Don't sugarcoat anything."

Becky Purser: 478-256-9559, @BecPurser

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