Taylor Powers, College Student, Strips Naked After Eating Mushrooms And Has To Be Rescued Off Colorado Mountain

Taylor Powers, a 21-year-old college student, had to be rescued from a mountain Sunday afternoon after ingesting mushrooms and stripping naked. The University of Colorado undergrad had to be restrained by two male companions as she tried to fight them while high on the hallucinogenic drug.

Mushrooms disrupt the normal functioning of serotonin in the brain, and some people may be unable to differentiate fantasy from reality.

Boulder County Sheriff’s Office deputies received a call that a female hiker was “high on mushrooms and in distress,” leading 35 deputies and rescue personnel to head to the scene. A park ranger located Powers, and rescuers later had to handcuff the college student, as she was acting unruly, before being placed in a rescue basket, the Daily Mail reports.

She was transported to a local hospital and later cited for unlawful consumption of a controlled substance. As mushrooms are natural, many people presume that they are safe to ingest, though they have serious risks and consequences. Last year, a teen who ate mushrooms shot himself in the head so he would wake up from the nightmare he was living, he told police.

The 17-year-old, Steven Tilbury, suffered a near-fatal blow to the head, but doctors were able to remove the bullet from his head, Gawker reports. Tilbury explained that he fell asleep soon after he and his friends had ingested the mushrooms and that, when he woke up, he said it felt like it wasn't real. He explained he felt like he was awake in a terrible nightmare and couldn't leave his home and said he thought if he shot himself he would wake up from the bad dream, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reports.