ST PETER - A campus medical call for a Gustavus Adolphus College tennis player has resulted in felony drug charges being filed against another student.
Rodrigo Otero stunned his teammate, Marcel Gyswyt, when he fell to his dorm room floor at about 1:45 a.m. April 7. Gyswyt's response was to call Otero's roommate, 18-year-old Jonathan Lendrum, who told police he immediately started CPR when he returned to the room.
It was just after 2 a.m. when a fourth man, Nicholas Hansen, called 911 to request an ambulance. He reported someone had overdosed on drugs and CPR was being performed.
When a St. Peter police officer arrived at the room in the Southwest Hall dormitory, they found Otero lying unconscious on the floor with Lendrum leaning over him. Otero was provided oxygen until the ambulance crew arrived. He had a strong pulse but shallow breathing, the officer reported.
When Hansen was interviewed by a police officer, he said he had picked Lendrum up at about 1:15 a.m. At about 11:15 p.m. the night before, Lendrum had told him he had synthetic heroin and planned to snort it with Otero, Hansen reported.
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He said he was with Lendrum when Gyswyt called to say Otero had passed out and Lendrum needed to get back to the room. When they arrived at the room, Lendrum handed a bag of pills to Gyswyt and Gyswyt left before police arrived.
When Lendrum was interviewed, he said a friend in Wisconsin had given him one Opana or Oxymorphone pill. He said he crushed the pill and snorted it with Otero before leaving with Hansen to go read poetry. Opana is a prescription pain killer. Oxymorphone is a synthetic drug that's similar to, but less powerful than, morphine or heroin.
Hansen only knew Gyswyt as "Mack," but he did know he played on the college tennis team. So police officers were able to figure who he was by going to the tennis team's website. Campus security officers went to Gyswyt's room at about 4:30 a.m. and he turned over a bag of pills.
The bag contained five blue pills, two white pills, a green pill and a poem describing their colors and how to ingest them, according to the criminal complaint charging Lendrum with two counts of fifth-degree drug possession. The pills in the bag were prescription sedatives, investigators reported.
The complaint did not say if Otero was taken to the hospital to be treated.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
