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COVID-19 Survivor Warns Against Pink Floyd Induced Delirium

Words by Riley Fitzgerald
Graphic by Press

Covid-19 survivor Josh Wortman has warned against the mind-altering effects of listening 1973 Pink Floyd album The Dark Side of the Moon.

As Yahoo Life reports, the New York State resident was rushed to Peconic Bay Medical Centre’s intensive care unit on March 20 after suffering from severe symptoms of COVID-19.

Hooked up to a ventilation device and placed in isolation, Wortman was unable to receive visitors.

In an effort to make him feel at home, carers placed a written notice near Wortman’s room stating, “Josh does yoga, he loves Pink Floyd.”

However, one night, as nurses played Wortman Pink Floyd’s 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon, Wortman “descended into terror.”

At first I thought, ‘cool music’,’” Wortman recounted to Yahoo Life. “But then I was just in this delirium … this dystopian world.”

The disorientated Wortman would then seek to remove his respiration device.

I’m in the dark … in restraints,” Wortman recounted of the struggle, “and Dark Side of the Moon is playing. And I thought, ‘I need to get this [tube] out.’”

Mortman believes the album, which has spent 350 weeks in the Billboard 200 album charts, further added to his disorientation.

Nurses observed the patient slip into a heightened state of confusion where he believed himself to be “fighting demons or Mordor”.

Wortman would also inform the hospital staff that there was another patient in the room with him when he was quite clearly alone.

Yahoo Life contends Wortman was suffering from a medical condition known as Intensive Care Unit Delirium.

This altered state of mind is experienced by as many as 80% of patients placed on ventilation devices.

Memory loss, decreased awareness of surroundings, paranoia and hallucinations are all counted amongst effects of the condition.

COVID-19’s impact on cognitive health is believed to only further exacerbate the symptoms of those afflicted.

Despite the therapeutic application of music, it is not difficult to see how Pink Floyd’s album, long noted for its mind-altering properties and in part inspired by the madness of the group’s original bandleader Syd Barrett as well as the aftershocks of Sixties psychedelia, may have had a triggering effect.

Despite these difficulties, Wortman has since been discharged.

He has now been reunited with his wife and 6-year-old son.

This said it may be a little while before he ducks his head back inside of The Dark Side of the Moon.

Yahoo Life’s full report here.

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