Heartbroken mum tells of drug dangers after daughter’s ordeal

Brave Marie Greer released shocking images of her daughter Stacey Jewell, 29, lying motionless in a hospital bed having suffered catastrophic brain injuries.

The mum-of-one has been in a coma for almost three weeks. She needs round-the-clock care and will have little quality of life if she does survive.

But her family have been told she is not likely to win her fight to stay alive.

Stacey, from Fleetwood, overdosed on a cocktail of drugs and has been given only a one per cent chance of coming out of the coma.

In an emotional interview, mum Marie, from Mereside, spoke to The Gazette in the hope her tragic story will show others the dangers of drug abuse.

She said: “Stacey thought she was invincible but this proves you don’t know what you’re buying.

“This is what drugs do to you.

“I hope others will learn from it.”

Stacey – a 29-year-old addict, who has a three-year-old son – ingested a lethal mix of amphetamine, ketamine and heroine-substitute methadone on April 7.

Her mother, of Cartmell Road, Mereside, believes she only intended to take amphetamine.

Stacey suffered a fit and choked on her own vomit, starving her brain of oxygen and causing irreversible damage.

She has not yet come round from a coma, despite doctors’ best efforts at Royal Preston Hospital.

Police are now investigating the incident and have made two arrests.

The details of Stacey’s condition and injuries are harrowing – but her mother is unapologetic in recounting them. She said: “It’s such a waste of a life. She’s always been hanging around with the wrong crowd.

“This time she’s gone to someone’s house and got what she thought was a bag of amphetamine. It turned out to be dodgy.

“From taking it she’s fitted and had fallen unconscious.

“She was fitting for a long time, by which time she was brain dead.

“Eventually someone called an ambulance. Now she’s in a coma and severely brain damaged and she’s had pneumonia. It’s a waiting game now.

“I want this to show people that this is what drugs will do to you.”

The mother-of-seven, who volunteers for a Mereside-based charity, has kept a daily bedside vigil in hospital.

She has already told doctors that should Stacey not make it she would like her healthy organs to be donated in a bid to have some semblance of good come from her daughter’s drug abuse.

She said: “I’m heartbroken. She’s been foolish, but she’s still my daughter.

“If the worst comes to the worst we’ll donate her organs to help other people.”

Stuart Greer, 18, Stacey’s brother, said: “We pretty much know she is brain damaged and she won’t get better. We are pretty much hoping for a miracle.

“People don’t know this is what the outcome can be with drugs.

“You never expect this is going to happen to a member of your family.”

Stacey grew up in Fleetwood with her six siblings and attended Fleetwood High School where her mum says she showed promise and never gave her too much cause for concern.

As an 18-year-old she moved to the Isle of Man and worked a bar job which she “loved” but when she moved back to the Fylde coast she “fell in with the wrong crowd” and has been homeless and jobless since.

Her mother added: “She never experimented with drugs when she was younger.

“But then she got in with a bad crowd.

“Then having her son changed her for a bit but she missed the buzz of the drugs.”

A 39-year-old man and a 42-year-old woman have been arrested in relation to the incident and later bailed.

Det Supt Simon Pritchard, from Blackpool CID, confirmed: “Two people have been arrested and are helping us with our inquiries.

“Police take incidents of this nature very seriously and we will always try to get to the bottom of who’s supplied these drugs.

“We can’t stress enough the dangers of taking drugs.”