COUPLE TELLS OF SON'S DRUG OVERDOSE

PALATKA - Michael's Message was the topic of conversation Tuesday at
Palatka High School.

The story is of Michael Paul Tiedmann, a 15-year-old Vero Beach youth who
died in 1998 from taking the designer drug gamma hydroxybutyrate.
Tiedmann's parents, Debbie and Brad Alumbaugh, told his story to four
audiences of PHS students, who sat quietly, many teary. Debbie Alumbaugh
said Michael weighed three pounds at birth.

She brought him home in a one-piece jumper made for a Cabbage Patch doll.
Tuesday, she draped the garment over an enlarged photograph of her son that
stood onstage in the PHS commons area. Tiedmann overcame his birth problems
to become an honor roll student who was adored by his friends.

He excelled at karate, earned black belts, and was a karate instructor.
"When Michael died, it not only affected us, it reached into the entire
community," Alumbaugh said. Brad Alumbaugh said on Oct. 1, 1998, Michael
asked to go to the movies with his 19-year-old first cousin, something not
usually allowed on a school night.

The couple let him go to the movies because he had brought home a school
report with excellent grades. It was the day another student at school had
already given him methadone, a medication used to treat drug addiction, for
a headache. That afternoon, Tiedmann's best friend came to the Alumbaugh's
home, and made a GHB transaction in Tiedmann's bedroom. While en route to
the movies, his cousin stopped briefly so they could play basketball with
other neighborhood youths. Tiedmann collapsed on the basketball court --
the first sign he was in trouble.

His friends did not take the situation seriously.

They gathered him up and placed him in the car. At the theater, he passed
out again. When Tiedmann returned home at 11:15 p.m., Alumbaugh recognized
his son was high. After questioning him, Tiedmann responded he and the
other youths had smoked marijuana.

His son ate and went to bed. On Oct. 2, Tiedmann's friends called to say he
was not at the bus stop. Alumbaugh discovered his son dead in his bedroom.

"As a parent, the worst thing in the world is to lose a child," he said,
describing in explicit detail the condition of his son when he found him,
the funeral, and the impact of the death on family members and friends.
Alumbaugh's message not only dealt with the dangers of designer drugs, but
the "silence" of peers who refuse to tell the truth or request assistance
for someone in trouble with drugs.

Debbie Alumbaugh said one "swig" of GHB is enough to kill someone. It
paralyzes the motor skills and causes gagging, which means the victim
cannot request help, Alumbaugh said.

GHB, often made in unsanitary labs such as a bathtub, is dissolved in
alcohol or drugs, can be slipped into drinks at parties, and leads to
unconsciousness, she said. "That's one of the reasons they're calling it
the new date-rape drug."

In 1990, the U.S. Congress passed an act that made GHB a "schedule 1
substance," placing it in the same category as cocaine, Alumbaugh said.

She also mentioned the designer drug Ecstasy, which comes in pill form, and
creates holes in the brain.

She said students are beginning to illegally use oxyContin, a pain reliever
given to cancer patients, which can stop the heart.

PHS senior Jake Cremer said students have heard messages on drug awareness
before. "But I don't think we've had anything that's affected students like
that, because people have been talking about it all day long."

Cremer said the message left him stunned. "And I almost felt bad to laugh
and joke around with my friends afterward." "I think it opened a lot of
students' eyes," he said. The group includes those "naive" to drugs, and
those who have been exposed to them.

The local school district invited the Alumbaughs to bring Michael's Message
to Putnam County high schools this week to warn students about dangers of
designer drugs.

After each talk, they are holding parent-only seminars in the evening about
designer or club drugs.

Remaining parent sessions are 6 p.m. today at the Interlachen High School
gymnasium, and 6 p.m. Thursday in the Crescent City Jr.-Sr. High School
cafeteria. The Alumbaugh's started the Michael's Message Foundation to
raise awareness about designer drugs.

For details on Michael's Message or designer drugs, access
www.michealsmessage.org.