Disturbing Video Shows Couple Overdosed On Heroin After Almost Causing Crash

Yet another disturbing video capturing an overdosed couple in a car has emerged. This time, however, there was even more danger involved.

Both 24-year-old Taylor Swartzlander and 22-year-old Haley Kirkendall were taken to Toledo's Mercy St. Anne Hospital after they crashed their car in Ohio, News West 9 reports.

Before the couple was reached by authorities, however, some bystanders captured the scene of the man and woman in distress, as shown in the clip below.

While the man who captured the video, 25-year-old Tyler Rieger, was criticized by various viewers for taking the video (as opposed to calling authorities), Rieger told the Toledo Blade that others had already called 911.

He said he shot the video for a purpose.

Rieger said,

I took the video because I wanted to show a couple of people -- not a quarter-million people -- this is what people are doing in our community in broad daylight and show the power of heroin. A lot of friends I grew up with did it, I've lost friends to heroin. I had no intentions of making these people embarrassed; everybody has a heart.

Rieger also says he noticed the couple's car drifting off the road before it crashed. Luckily, there were no passengers in the parked vehicle that was hit by Swartzlander and Kirkendall.

For this fact, police lieutenant Joe Heffernan is thankful.

Heffernan told WTOL-TV,

Fortunately, yesterday, this vehicle, which crossed over the center lane, crashed into a parked car in the Big Boy lot and not head on into somebody's family that was driving down the road.

The couple has since been released from the hospital. While no one was seriously injured, the video is, of course, emblematic of a larger issue.

Heffernan said,

The other part is getting help for these people who are addicted to opiates. The fact of the matter is that it's killing people – a lot of people.

There's no denying that.

Citations: DailyMail.com, News West 9, Toledo Blade