Click the play button on the video window to the see the storyPHOENIX -- Randy Murphy woke up early on the morning of July 13th, hoping to talk his son David into going for a hike. The 16-year-old was still sleeping, and Randy didn't have much luck rousing him.
Murphy took a shower, and wandered into David's room once again. But something was different. David was cold to the touch. His lips were blue, and Murphy, a trained EMS worker, instantly knew something was terribly wrong.
Murphy called 911 and began CPR. Police officers arrived minutes later, and took over chest compressions. David was rushed to the hospital. Doctors were able to pull out a weak pulse, but David could only hold on for about a day and a half.
The 6 foot four inch 205 pound athlete couldn't fight any longer. He was gone.
"I still find myself driving around this community, to and from work, going to the store and I'm looking for my son," Murphy says. "It's not real yet. Something hasn't made it real."
David Murphy had played a dangerous game with some of his friends the night before his death. He had taken what some refer to as a "cocktail," combining the prescription drugs Oxycontin, Percocet and Xanax with alcohol, overloading his young body with depressants, which eventually stopped his heart.
Toxicology testing will eventually determine the quantities of drugs in David's system, but drug experts say what happened to him is becoming all too common. Drug experts say combining drugs is especially dangerous because of the multiplying effect of combining chemicals in the body.
"This wasn't supposed to happen. David was a good kid. He was a normal teenager. He wasn't an angel, but he wasn't a bad kid," Murphy said.
In fact, if David Murphy's case is like many others, his friends needed to look no further than their own medicine cabinets for the drugs to get high.
Groups like the National Drug Council have virtually abandoned their efforts against drugs like marijuana in favor of educating teens and parents of the dangers of prescription drugs. Pills are often perceived as safer because they're prescribed, and are often easier to get.
Murphy believes they were actually the drug of choice for David and his friends.
"I think it's easier to catch a high by taking a pill than it is to smoke a joint or do some other kind of street drug," Murphy said.
Murphy has now begun a group he calls PAPA, or Parents Against Pharmaceutical Abuse, and he hopes to share his story in middle schools and with other parents.
"I walk around the neighborhood and I see these kids hanging out, and it's scary, because, man, I don't want another parent to see what I saw."
