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Q. I believe my friend was sleep driving when he was killed in a car accident. A dump truck slammed into his car at an intersection he’d known all his life. It was only two blocks from his house.
I called his wife to get the story and she said he reportedly ran a blatant red light on his way to work. That is certainly not like him, especially because he was applying for a police job. If you’re doing that, you don't go through red lights, for sure.
When I’d talked with him not five days earlier, he had told me he was on Ambien. He said if he didn't get enough sleep he would do strange things. I feel the Ambien caused him, a husband and father of two, to be killed needlessly because he was probably sleep driving under its influence.
A. Ambien has been linked to “sleep driving.” Whether this sleeping pill was responsible for your friend’s accident is impossible to tell. Others have shared stories of bizarre behavior (including sleep driving) under the influence of Ambien (zolpidem).
Many people are able to take Ambien safely, but others need a different approach for dealing with insomnia. Some people wake early in the morning and cannot get back to sleep. For them, a shorter-acting drug like Sonata may be preferable.
We discuss the pros and cons of sleeping pills like Ambien, Sonata, Lunesta and Rozerem as well as non-drug approaches in our Guide to Getting a Good Night’s Sleep.
I also have an experience my Mother had with Ambien to share. She had surgery on her shoulder & the doctor prescribed AmbienCR to help her rest so her shoulder could heal. She took a pill the first night & slept very soundly (she said the best she had slept in a long time). The next night she took another pill, but my father called me a little later & said something was wrong with Mother. I quickly went to check on her, and found her speech slurred, she was unable to walk without stumbling & generally very disoriented.
The way she was acting reminded me of a way I had felt when taking sleeping pills several years earlier, so I told my father I believed it was the Ambien. She has not taken any more & had no more problems. When I had taken the sleeping pills (not Ambien) before, it felt like part of my brain was asleep although I was still awake & trying to talk.
It's true I'm afraid... I'm a shift worker with absolutely no sleep schedule -- it's all over the 24-hour clock. I've been using Ambien for years on an intermittent, maybe x2/week schedule to ensure I get sleep when it's absolutely crucial, with no real problems. Just recently, though, after using Ambien, I found that I'd cooked something in the kitchen -- a piece of blackened bread still in the toaster oven, and it was on, no less! Could've burnt the house down.. Also some clothes pulled out of boxes downstairs that I have no memory of doing, yet it had to be me. I am still using Ambien at times, because that's really all I have right now, but I'm being much more cautious...& I hope that'll keep me safe!
I've had many weird experiences with Ambien. I'm 17 years old and I have Insomnia. Ambien does give you a good night sleep, but it's very dangerous. It makes me sleep walk, it gets me hungry..and makes me do things I have no memory of the next day. & You also feel the need to talk to people alot. Sometimes I feel like I'm in a dream when I'm really awake, it's a really bad feeling. Ambien can be very addicting. So everyone who's reading this please talk to your doctor about a safer medication to help you sleep! Thank you for taking the time to read this.
You don't have to tell me about Ambien! Ambien would make me sleep walk, eat, and drive! I would wake up with food all in my bed not remembering anything that happened. Also my mother said I would walk into the living room and start talking to her, again I have no idea how this was happening. I will never take Ambien again because Feb. 1, 2008 I was literally 30 seconds from my house when I woke in the hospital with a broken femur, ankle, patella, fractured skull, and broken finger! Yep! Sleep driving! I never wear pj's out driving! EVER!!!!
I had my night clothes on! So I believe I was sleep walking to the car, driving, and totaled my car into a tree! I understand Ambien helps people with insomnia! But the drug companies pay millions advertising the drug so people will ask their doctors about it. Pathetic how a profit can reflect someone's own life! Please be careful on Ambien AND NEVER EVER! ever ever ever! take more than your supposed to because you will sleep walk, eat, and drive!
Here's an interesting event that happened to me two nights ago: In my "mind" I took one 10mg Ambien and went to bed. The next morning I woke up ~900am, got a call from a coworker and finished packing for a business trip. I met him downstairs and told him I had to go to the bank to transfer some money to my wife's account. When I called her to ask for the acct #, she asked me how I was feeling. I replied, "I'm fine. Why?", she tells me "Hon, you were in the hospital for almost 8hrs last night after you wrecked your car" ?!?!?!?!???? Apparently, I got back up about 1hr after going to sleep, got into an argument with someone at the front desk of the hotel I'm staying in over god-only-knows what, then I drove 2 miles to a gas station (why, I still don't know) and when I left the gas station I drove over an embankment where my car got stuck. The police showed up and I have no idea what happened but they took me to the ER, gave me a CAT scan, almost put me on the mental ward for telling the Dr's that I was going to have them killed b/c my wife is a ninja (no kidding!), I told them it was 1997 and we were in Georgia (this happened in NC...), and I tried to "escape" dozens of times over the next ~8hrs. I have no memory AT ALL of any of this! I'm sore as hell, probably from fighting Dr's, cops, and security guards and I'm scared to death I'm going to have legal charges leveled against me. I don't drink or use drugs and ALL I took WHILE LAYING DOWN was ONE 10mg Ambien. All the hospital found in my blood was ONE AMBIEN. I didn't "fight sleep", drink before or after taking it, or mix it with any other prescriptions. The warning label on this stuff should read "Close supervision required" because I almost killed myself and nearly wound up in a mental hospital ---> all for doing something that I was dead asleep while it was happening....
I to have an Ambien CR horror story. I am (was) a police officer in the SW United States. I took one 12.5 mg Ambien CR after a meal and went to bed. Sometime after that I proceeded to get up, got dressed, left my home in my personal vehicle and was involved in a crash and was subsequently arrested and lost my job.
I took the prescribed dose as directed. A review of my blood results found only Ambien in my system with no alcohol or any other substance. The reviewing doctor stated the blood levels were within acceptable prescription use. Further research by myself revealed that the onset and absorption of the medicine can be delayed between 2 and 4 hours according to the Ambien CR website.
I had tried numerous other sleep remedies both OTC and herbal and nothing was successful I then opted for prescription relief with Ambien CR which I had taken for well over a year with no side effects that I was aware of.
I currently am facing criminal charges as well as the loss of a 14 year career. I strongly encourage anyone taking any form of Ambien or the generic variation to cease taking it due to the unpredictability of it. The choice could save your life, the life of others, as well as your livelihood.
Additionally, Mr and Dr. Graedon if you have any questions on my incident if it would be beneficial to your readers or listeners please feel free to e-mail me and I would be happy to assist in any way.
A few days a go I was driving to work and had a flat tire. No big deal...happens all the time right? I called AAA to change the tire (I am disabled) and when I got there the tow truck guy said that the tire was ruined, the rim was bent, the axle was broken, and the oil pan was gone. He said that he usually only sees damage like this when someone runs over a curb while driving drunk. He said this jokingly of course as I was sober and it was 10 am.
Later that day, I'm at work and to one of my co-workers I remarked I must have driven over a curb or something. He said, oh...so you don't remember? I know he was thinking I was driving drunk, which I never, NEVER have or will do (lost 2 of my best friends and my brother is currently facing DUI charges) I laugh and remark my parking lot is a mess. About 2 hours later, I am watching TV and all of a sudden I have a flashback. I was in a lot of pain and couldn't sleep so I took an Ambien 10mg in addition to my pain medication (I've done this a million times) then I remembered getting hungry. I remembered driving to a gas station down the street from my house. I found weird things in my house (hidden ice cream, chips, Colt 45 Malt Liquor, a roadmap) things I wouldn't purchase. I then remembered turning into my driveway and running off the road.
Knowing what I did do makes me so angry at myself. How could I have damaged a brand new car? Worse, what if I had killed someone and had no idea. This is a great sleep medication when taken alone, but when taken with opiates and muscle relaxants it can have horrible consequences. In the past I have also made bizarre phone calls to my friends, co-workers, and parents where I would have emotional breakdowns over the most trivial things (like the boyfriend of the guy I like moved into my building that has over 2000 people in it or that I am going to drop out of school b/c I can't do math), I have no memory of these calls until the next day when my loved ones come to check to make sure that I'm alright.
If I could sleep at night, I would NEVER take Ambien again. However, due to my pain I have to take it in order to get some sleep. I have begun to lock up my phone and car keys in a lockbox to prevent me from doing something stupid. I am so embarrassed and the worse part is I can't tell anyone.
I feel so bad. The brother of my daughter-in-law's best friend was killed in a car accident this week. The brother (age 39) was staying at his sister's home - her husband was out of town on business and she is pregnant and the mother of two. Around 2:00 AM, she heard her brother up walking around, heard a door close and heard her car in the garage start. She looked out the window and saw her brother in her car and he drove off. She called her husband and asked if she should call the police or report her car stolen/missing and her husband said not to worry that her brother probably just drove up the street for something.
After much anxiety and another hour passed when there was a knock on her door. It was the police. They told her that her brother was in an accident and didn't make it. She said okay but where is he. They again repeated that he didn't make it. Her mind could not comprehend what she was hearing. He hit the neighbor's mail box as he left her home and drove down the road. He was not wearing a seat belt and he was in his pajamas. I believe the car flipped over. It was a one car accident.
Yes, he was on Ambien. How tragic that a drug used as a sleep aide has such adverse and tragic side effects. The FDA owes it to the public to investigate this drug.
Oh my God..I'm glad I came across this site..All day I keep feeling like I'm being pulled into a dream. It's happened four times now... Afterwards I feel very nauseated and sweaty. It's very scary. I will never take Ambien again. I hope this garbage leaves your system quickly.