Nitrous oxide ‘silver bullets’ everywhere
By Hayden Moore
THE father of Alex Ryan Morrissey has again warned people of the dangers of nitrous oxide canister misuse, detailing the devastation that his family has endured since his death last year.
Alex tragically passed away after he was found unresponsive in the Ballycullen area in May 2020.
Alex Ryan Morrissey’s parents Mick and Aine hold a photo frame of Alex last May
At the time, Alex was believed to have died after inhaling nitrous oxide from a “silver bullet” but now, there is some uncertainty around the cause of death.
And yet, even though he is no longer sure of what caused Alex’s death, his father Mick is still trying to raise awareness of the damage that nitrous oxide can cause when inhaled.
“This is a living nightmare for us and it’s destroying me because nobody is talking about it anymore,” Mr Morrissey tells The Echo.
“It was everywhere when Alex died, everyone was talking about these canisters but now it’s out of sight, out of mind.
“If you want to know how much devastation this has caused, you should come over to my house.
The canisters discovered in housing estates in Clondalkin and Tallaght over the past 10 days
“My wife can’t even get out of bed some days because she’s been crying so much, my two daughters are crying all the time, sharing prayers for Alex online and all.”
The last time that Mick and his wife Áine spoke to Alex, he was at home in Cushlawn asking for money to go get his haircut – which he did.
In the hours after, Alex went missing and his family began making calls to try locating their son.
This led to Mick calling An Garda Siochána.
The canisters discovered in housing estates in Clondalkin and Tallaght over the past 10 days
“When I called the guards, they asked me who I was looking for and I told them, Alex Ryan Morrissey,” Mick reveals to The Echo.
“The guard says to me ‘look stay in your house; I’m sending a car over to you’.
“I didn’t know what to be thinking, the Sergeant told me that they’re bringing me to Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital so I hopped in the car.
“I walked into the hospital and they bring me in to this cubicle for a meeting, they tell me that they want me to look at this child who is already deceased.
“Jesus, I couldn’t believe what they were saying and to be honest I didn’t even think it was him.
“It just didn’t even look like him and said ‘no that’s not him’ – but then it was the scar on the forehead and above the eyebrow that got me.”
Since the turn of the year, The Echo understands that resident’s in Tallaght and Clondalkin have reported seeing an influx in the number of discarded canisters on the streets.
Teenagers and youths are misusing the gas in an effort for a quick and cheap high, by releasing the gas from canisters into balloons and inhaling it.
The HSE first warned young people of the risks associated with misusing nitrous oxide last January and warned them not to inhale the substance also known as laughing gas.
Inhaling the gas can have devastating effects including the potential to displace air in the lungs, stopping oxygen from entering the blood flow and ultimately increasing the heart rate.
“These canisters are all over the place,” says Mr Morrissey.
“People don’t care, you could walk across to the shop here in Killinarden and the young fellas are doing everything.
“To be honest, I feel like a bit of a thick now because I’m being told that Alex mightn’t have died from taking one of these.
“The guards are telling me that the post mortem isn’t matching but I can’t find out the results until I go to the coroners court – which I’m told could be years because of coronavirus.
“At the start, I was told specifically that that’s what Alex was doing but I just feel like I’ll be told it’s death by misadventure or something now.
“It feels like nobody cares anymore but the kids still have to be warned about these [canisters].
“I’ve been trying my best to get people to listen to me about this, I’ve been on the radio, even on breakfast shows in America and England.
“I’ll keep going, I’ll keep trying.”
Even though a level of uncertainty is surrounding what has caused the 15-year-olds death, Mick is continuing to spread the word about the dangers of hippy crack all across the world.
Recounting what sort of a person Alex was, Mick says: “He was a quiet youngfella.
“He loved school, he’d go to school then come home, take his uniform off, leave it on the floor and get straight into his dressing gown.
“That’s the way we all knew him, he just lived in his boxer shorts and dressing gown.
“He’d go upstairs then, jump on the PlayStation for a few hours and get up again the next morning for school.
“That was his routine. He’d go out with friends and that, but he still stuck to his little routine.
“One of the days he went out, and you know the rest… we just never seen him again.”
By subscribing to The Echo you are supporting your local newspaper Click Here: Echo Online.
