Inside the Wesleyan Molly Bust
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round 7:30 a.m. on Sunday, February 22nd, Zachary Kramer, a sophomore at Wesleyan University, realized his classmate Abhimanyu Janamanchi had stopped breathing. The night before, Janamanchi had been at a party at the Eclectic Society, a kind of alternative anti-fraternity on campus, where New York DJs called Swim Team performed. “Come to eclectic this Saturday night to experience their phresh club workouts,” a freshman had advertised on a student blog, promising beats “spanning the realm of dance musics from leftfield juke to jersey bangers.” Jungle juice came around, students packed the sweltering dance floor and shortly after midnight Janamanchi started to feel unwell. He called Kramer to come pick him up. A student at the party later told police that Janamanchi was “having trouble walking.”
Kramer helped Janamanchi to the dorms on Foss Hill, the sloping central green around which the Middletown, Connecticut campus is built, and gave him water and Triscuit crackers. Eventually, Janamanchi fell asleep on a mattress on the floor of a friend’s room. Kramer, a neuroscience major with his sights set on medical school, stayed close throughout the night. Five hours later, Janamanchi shot up from his mattress to take a gasp of air, then collapsed back down. Kramer failed to find a pulse, and called 911. The dispatcher stayed on the phone while Kramer administered about 150 chest compressions. When paramedics arrived, they found Janamanchi unresponsive, administered six defibrillator shocks and intubated him on the way to Middlesex Hospital. The Middletown Police Department, an agency affidavit notes, sent officers “to a medical/overdose with a possible untimely death.”
Similar scenes appeared to be unfolding around the college. Kramer’s call was the first of a series to which the Middletown Fire Department responded over a six-hour period that Sunday; its staff made seven trips in all to student residences. Janamanchi and another critically ill student were airlifted to Hartford Hospital. Middletown Fire Chief Robert Kronenberger, who has worked in the department for 25 years, had never experienced such a severe situation at the school. “We don’t really have a big problem with Wesleyan,” he says. “So when we had that many patients in such a short time we put two and two together pretty rapidly.”
At least one of the students hospitalized offered a Middletown police detective an explanation for the rash of emergencies: a bag of white powder split with two others on Saturday night.
As the number of hospitalizations mounted that Sunday, Wesleyan’s vice president for student affairs, Michael Whaley, known affectionately as Dean Mike, sent two campus-wide e-mails announcing that a number of students had been transported to the hospital for what appeared to be overdoses of MDMA (also known as Ecstasy or Molly). The drug can cause severe increases in body temperature, which can lead in turn to sudden failure of the liver, kidney or heart. The administration feared that students across campus, many in single rooms, might be overheating in their beds. Whaley wrote, “First, and most importantly, please check in with your friends immediately to make sure that they are okay. Do this right now!”
Twelve people were ultimately hospitalized — ten Wesleyan students and two guests. Each was soon released but one: Janamanchi, who remained in critical condition at Hartford Hospital throughout the next week. On Monday, Wesleyan’s president, Michael Roth, sent an e-mail to the student body describing “complications arising from the use of a version of the drug Molly, a refined and more powerful form of Ecstasy (MDMA).” Roth urged students, “If you are aware of people distributing these substances, please let someone know.”
Inside the Wesleyan Molly Bust, Page 1 of 13