We've all had moments where our judgement has been impaired after a drink. But spare a thought for one woman who fell from her fifth story window after mixing booze with her medication.
Megan Heidgerd, a nursing assistant from Cheshire, Connecticut, tumbled 40 feet out of her housemate's bedroom window after opening it for air after a heavy session of drinking.
Advert
The 22-year-old landed on the concrete patio of her apartment building's swimming pool in Pensacola, Florida, USA.
Luckily surviving the fall, Megan broke her right foot and knee, sliced open her left leg and sustained head injuries which required 20 stitches.
The hospital worker put her fall down to mixing her prescribed Prozac medication with alcohol, saying she thought she was going to die as she fell to the ground.
Advert
"I was trying to grab the building as I was falling," Megan recalled.
"I hit the concrete with my head and I didn't black out right away. I thought I was going to die.
"I said to myself: 'This is it'."
Megan had began taking Prozac - an antidepressant common in America - for two weeks before the incident on 14th November 2019.
Advert
The nurse admitted she didn't follow advice not to mix the drug with alcohol.
"I've never been on Prozac before," she said. "I know that you are not supposed to mix meds and alcohol but I didn't think about it, or I didn't really care."
Megan began drinking at roughly 8.30pm with a friend, before another friend joined them an hour later.
Throughout the course of the night, the group went from vodka to cinnamon-flavoured whiskey.
Advert
"We were playing music and just talking," recalled Megan.
"We started fighting about what music to play and I remember being a little mean about it being my speaker.
"I was offered a Fireball and I just said yes."
At around midnight, Megan's friends left to go and see other friends in the building, so Megan was left alone in her roommate's bedroom.
Advert
Megan opened a window to get some air, and sat on the window sill. The next thing she remembers is falling out.
"It's really fuzzy to remember," she said. "I was opening the window to get some air.
"When you are drunk, you don't know what you are doing. I slipped - I was trying to grab the building as I was falling."
On her way to the ground, Megan's leg got caught on a wooden fence which paramedics believe saved her life.
"There's a wooden fence around the pool area and they say that my leg caught that," she explained.
"They think that's what saved me. I was still awake when I landed. I was trying to crawl around for someone to find me. I'm not sure who did find me."
When Megan awoke she was in Ascension Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola, Florida, where she'd received surgery on her leg. She also broke 3 bones in her foot, broke her knee and had wounds on her head.
Megan, who is currently getting around in a wheelchair, is now staying with a family member in a nearby town and hopes to return to work in a few weeks.
Now, Megan says she's "quitting drinking forever".
"Don't drink if you are taking antidepressants," she urged others. "It's not like normal drinking. It really messes with your judgement. It throws you off."
Featured Image Credit: SWNS