On the last night of Burning Man, I helped Okki and Ash pack up their hexayurt, and then after dark, I let them finish packing the minivan on their own, and I tended to packing up my own tent, and getting my bags all ready, to take them to the bus stop.
While I was putting out my possessions, in order of light to heavy, for better packing, I heard one of my camp mates in his tent, where he'd been sleeping after the cocktail party we had gone to. He sounded as if he were gasping for breath. He was calling out "Help!" in a harsh voice.
I knew immediately something was not right. In a haste, I looked the zipper on his tent, and couldn't find it. I realized perhaps it was best to call in some aid. I went out of the monkey hut, in which his tent was located, and called out to Sean and Michele, who were cleaning up from dinner. They weren't going to leave until Tuesday.
I told them what happened. Sean came over and crept under the monkey tent and unzipped the tent. He went inside of it and started asking our camp mate what was wrong. Later Michele went in, and also did the same. They had known each other for a long time.
He was wild. He was breathing very fast and heavy, and was having paranoid hallucinations Sean and Michele took turns with him, and he seemed better at times, but then it would come back.
Michele explained to me that our camp mate, who drank heavily but who did not take drugs, had imbibed some kind of "space cake," on a whim.
"Not a good idea," she said. "You never know what's in it, or what kind of dose it was."
Our camp mate did not settle down. After an hour, Sean decided it was time to call the Rangers. By that time Kevin had come back. He had been out on the playa enjoying himself. He hadn't come in until late Friday night, and had gotten hastled badly by the BLM on the way in, so he was soaking up as much Burning Man as he could in the few days he was there.
He had come back at just the right time. We sent him off again on his bike to go to the Ranger headquarters. I gave Kevin directions because I knew where it was, at about 5:45 on the Esplanade, to the right of Center Camp. Kevin would know how to get there.
About forty-five minutes later a pickup truck rolled up to our intersetion in the dark. A couple men got out wearing brimmed hats and LED lights. We directed them to the monkey hut and the tent within it. One of them went inside and talked to our camp mate. Then one of them explained the situation to me, saying it was not uncommon, and that it could have been something as simple as a hashish cake.
He said that they were going to call Rampart, the Burning Man medical service, which they did on a walkie talkie. A short time later an ambulance pulled up, with a logo of a hospital in Washoe County. A couple female medicals attendants got out and headed over to the monkey hut.
They were going to take him out. When he realized what was happening he freaked.
"NO POLICE! NO POLICE!" he cried out.
But it wasn't the police. It was just the Burning Man Rangers, and the Rampart Medical Center, Both of these groups of people are part of Black Rock City, not the default world. So there was going to be no police report, and no insurance trail, and no cost, of course either.
We knew Kevin would stay with him down there. About an hour later, after Okki and Ash had finished packing up, we went down to Center Camp and then out onto the Esplanade to Rampart, which is marked in the darkness by a big red cross. The building is one of the few public structures at Burning Man that has normal doors. It is like small office on a construction site
It was open and the lights were on. Sean and Michele went inside, but they said they had no patient with the name of our friend. We checked at Ranger HQ, which was right next door, and they said couldn't say yes or no, because of privacy. We could, however, leave a message.
We were sort of creeped out by this. We decided to get some coffee at Center Camp (the coffeeshop was in its last hours of continuous operation). We drank it sitting in an alcove, the give of us (Okki, Ash, Sean, Michele, and me---Stefan had gone back to Reno on a cessna flight, and the Swedes in the RV had already left).
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