It was a very bad day for Boomer. Hurrying across the train trestle, cops close on his heels, he knew he was in a treacherous spot. An attempt to cure a physical affliction had led him to this bleak state. And now where could he run?

Moments earlier, he had fled a hospital where he’d sought relief from the menacing shadows cast across his thoughts. But he’d found no relief inside the massive medical building. Instead there was panic and confusion and chaos. Another jarring bump on a very long and bumpy road.

It started years ago when he injected drugs into his body. The narcotics didn’t harm him as much as the needle did. Hepatitis C. A viral disease that attacks the liver and can ultimately lead to a dismal death. The sins of long ago came back to haunt my friend and now here he was, on the run and desperate.

Maybe he shouldn’t have gone into the hospital and announced he felt like killing somebody. Maybe he could have softened his words. But Boomer was frantic. Medication clouded his thoughts and insinuated unaccustomed feelings. Disturbing, unsettling ideas buzzed in his head like bees.

“I was in the depths of depression,” he said. “It made me want to jump through a window or drive my car into a speeding truck. I told my wife I felt like stacking up bodies like cordwood.”

Boomer was taking a combination of two drugs used to treat hepatitis C. By the time he made it to the hospital, he felt like a man possessed by a demon.

Medicine is a wonderful thing. But we all know there is a price to pay for all the latest pharmaceutical advances. There are side effects with just about every medication out there. Boomer got a list of them when he picked up his prescription: Suicidal ideations, homicidal thoughts, depression, psychotic episodes and confusion are among them.

‘The worst nightmare’

Boomer felt them all.

“It’s hellish. It’s like the worst nightmare you can imagine. It’s like prison. Only the prison is inside you rather than the other way around.”

So, feeling like he might harm himself or others, Boomer went to Central Maine Medical Center. You know how it works. You’re asked to describe your symptoms so physicians might better treat you. A nurse asks what ails you and jots the information down.

“I told her I felt like killing people,” Boomer said. “She panicked.”

You can’t blame the nurse for her alarm and you can’t blame Boomer for his honesty. But what followed benefited nobody, scared many and threatened to escalate into a perilous situation.

Security officers were called. Boomer imagined restraints binding his arms and legs to a gurney. Frightened, he announced he wanted to leave the hospital. He was told he could not. He left anyway.

Security scurried after him, but Boomer made his exit. Police were called and they rushed to the area. Boomer, who knows the area well, hustled toward the train trestle and fled toward Auburn while sirens wailed a short distance away.

Now he didn’t know what to do. An effort to alleviate his anguish had failed miserably. He was being chased by cops now, in addition to the mental agonies that tailed him.

Back to the car

He went to the library and read a paper. But his nerves were jangled. He was afraid and confused. He was bordering on hopeless.

Boomer crossed the trestle again, this time heading back to Lewiston, back to the hospital from which he’d fled.

His car was surrounded by police officers. Boomer tried to saunter by, but the cops were keeping their eyes out for him. They spotted him as he passed.

Boomer tried to flee once more but was surrounded by a construction crew working at the hospital. The cops swarmed in. He was handcuffed and stuffed into the back of a cruiser.

Central Maine Medical Center doesn’t have a psychiatric ward. Boomer was taken to St. Mary’s to be evaluated instead. There was talk of putting him in four-point restraints. They left him handcuffed in an examination room instead.

Boomer insists police and medical staff treated him as though he’d committed a crime. They cajoled and provoked him, he said. They called him names. Somewhere along the tumultuous line he was called a scumbag, Boomer told me with bitterness.

“Finally, I told them I was not going to talk anymore,” he said.

But eventually, he did talk. A doctor had come to evaluate him. The physician examined Boomer’s medical history and asked a lot of questions. By now, Boomer had come to a sad realization: Frank truth is not always the wisest choice when you’re handcuffed to a chair and a mental-health expert is preparing to decide your fate.

“You have to tell them what they want to hear,” he said. “You can’t be honest about what’s going on in your life.”

Hours later, it was determined he was not a threat to himself or the community. He was sent home.

Boomer has a wife and a 5-year-old son. He is a recovering alcoholic who once thought it would be a kick to inject cocaine into his veins. Years later, he would find himself giving himself injections – on top of six pills a day – to stave off the disease that had come from the earlier needle.

Drug treatment might have been working on the hepatitis, but it had left Boomer in a state of mental and emotional unrest. So much that he had confessed murderous thoughts to a complete stranger.

He doesn’t take those drugs anymore, on the advice from another doctor. Now he waits and hopes for the best. The victim, Boomer feels, of a cure that proved worse than the disease.

mlaflamme@sunjournal.com