Video of car speeding away from body in Coast parking isn’t what it seems, police chief says
A video posted to Facebook Monday that shows a car speeding away from a body on the ground of a parking lot at a busy shopping center isn’t really what it seems, the Waveland police chief told the Sun Herald.
Chief Mike Prendergast said police were called to the shopping center at the corner of U.S. 90 and Mississippi Highway 603 about 5:10 p.m. Monday. The call came in as a medical emergency in the Factory Connection parking lot.
Waveland police arrived and found Bay St. Louis offers already on scene administering CPR to a man who was not breathing and had turned blue.
Prendergast said Waveland officers took over and sprayed Narcan into the right nostril of the victim, who began breathing again. American Medical Response then took over to administer medical care to the man, who is expected to survive.
Narcan, or naloxone, is used to help people suffering from a drug overdose.
The police chief said Narcan is regularly used by police in Waveland to help with overdose calls.
“That’s becoming a big thing right now,” Predergast said. “All my guys carry it.”
A Coast resident who said he was going to Planet Fitness, a gym in the same shopping center as Factory Connection, posted the video to Facebook showing a black car driving away from the unresponsive man. The video had been shared dozens of times by Tuesday morning. He also posted a photo of a police officer helping the man on the ground.
But the driver of that black car wasn’t leaving the man for dead, Prendergast said. His actions likely saved his life.
The police report said the driver of the car was going to Little Caesar’s restaurant, also in the same shopping center, to pick up pizza for his family when the victim approached him needing medical attention. After he collapsed, the driver loaded the man into his car to get him to a hospital, but stopped when he saw police responding to the scene.
He got the unresponsive man out of his car so police could begin administering life-saving measures.
“It wasn’t like he was being dumped,” Prendergast said.
The case has been turned over to a Waveland narcotics investigator, Prendergast said.
