----UPDATE----
http://www.startribune.com/...l/16029287.html Erik (The Viking) Fromm, for many years one of the nation's leading amateur bodybuilders, died in his Richfield home from an overdose of a highly potent and addictive painkiller, authorities said today.
Fromm, 36, who died Feb. 4, overdosed on fentanyl, the Hennepin County medical examiner's office said. The office said the overdose was accidental, and police said today that they expect to close out their investigation soon.
Fromm's death is at least the second in the Upper Midwest involving a bodybuilder using fentanyl.
"People can very easily can overdose on it because it is so strong," said Carol Falkowski, of the Minnesota Department of Health and a leading expert in Minnesota on illicit drug use. "It's almost always used in hospital settings, it's so strong," she added.
Fentanyl, under the jurisdiction of the Drug Enforcement Administration, is an opium-derived pain reliever, considered at least 80 times stronger than morphine and has the highest level of control for drugs with a recognized medical use. Last year, people in major cities such as the Twin Cities, Philadelphia and Detroit were selling fentanyl on the street as heroin, leading to numerous deaths, Falkowski said.
Fentanyl administered through a skin patch were the subject of recent federal recalls because of a flaw that could cause patients or caregivers to overdose.
In 2006, the Food and Drug Administration said that "deaths and other serious problems have resulted from accidental overdoses" of fentanyl.
The New York State Department of Health has investigated incidents of the patches being stolen from hospitals or being removed from the skin of patients.
Fromm had a serious traffic accident about a year ago in Wyoming, causing him severe pain in his lower back and in his legs and arms, said a friend of Fromm's, Kevin Schreifels.
"He was rating the pain pretty high," said Schreifels, a doctor at Lyn-Lake Chiropractic in Minneapolis.
While living in his native Wyoming and other Rocky Mountain states between 1998 and 2004, Fromm consistently finished in the top 10 among amateur super-heavyweights in national competitions sponsored by the 20,000-member National Physique Committee (NPC). He climbed to second in 1999.
Flex magazine reported in 2005 that Fromm suffered physical setbacks -- tearing a biceps and a chest muscle.
In the other bodybuilder's death, 34-year-old Clinton J. Bitz of Sioux Falls died in his sleep in April 2007 from a fentanyl overdose, said his fiancee, Bobbi Doerfler.
Doerfler, who moved from Monticello, Minn., with Bitz to South Dakota in 2001, said he suffered from painful migraines and had built up a resistance to other painkillers.
Bitz's mother, Wanda Cyr, of Monticello said that a relative shipped fentanyl patches to her son. She said police in Sioux Falls have been pursuing a criminal case against that relative, who had the patches properly prescribed to him.
"I'm a nurse," Cyr said, adding that she told her son, " 'You can't use these. These are dangerous.' "
She said that her son, an electrician who competed in regional bodybuilding events, didn't know that the dosage in the relative's patches had been increased shortly before he last used them.
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02-27-2008, 10:52 PM
Tema: Erik “The Viking” Fromm… found dead at age 36 (Pročitano 8498 puta)