By PHYLLIS ZORN
and eric meyer

Staff writers

An apparently overdosed man was airlifted Monday to Wesley Medical Center in Wichita after a series of bizarre incidents in the course of getting him treatment.

Marion ambulance was summoned at 3:37 p.m. Monday to a farm near 270th and Remington Rds.

As the ambulance arrived at the farm, the 34-year-old man drove off in a Jeep sport-utility vehicle with a quarreling female companion riding along.

Sheriff’s deputies also went to the scene.

Undersheriff Larry Starkey said the Jeep went only about 100 yards before it stopped in the middle of the road.

The man agreed to get into the ambulance and be taken to St. Luke Hospital, then changed his mind and got back out of the ambulance.

“You can’t force someone to go in an ambulance if they don’t want to,” Starkey said.

After the man and his companion talked to ambulance attendants and three sheriff’s deputies, it was agreed the woman would drive the man to St. Luke in the Jeep.

Deputies followed. Two Marion police officers met deputies and the couple at the emergency department and got him into the hospital at 5:05 p.m.

Marion ambulance then was dispatched to St. Luke at 5:39 p.m. to transfer the man, once stable, to Wesley.

The ambulance waited until 7:30 p.m. before returning to its quarters 10 minutes after a Lifesave helicopter ambulance landed to complete the transfer.

The helicopter lifted off at 8:10 p.m.

Starkey said he didn’t know what drug the man may have used.

His guess was that it might have been methamphetamine, but with other illicit drugs becoming more common in the county, it might have been something else.

He said he’d asked whether Narcan should be given to the man.

Narcan is an emergency medication given to rapidly reduce symptoms of opioid overdose.

He was told that when patients are up and moving around, Narcan would not have the anticipated effect.