Family members feared for the lives of the two Oklahoma college students allegedly drugged at a swim-up bar in Mexico as they waited in different countries while one of the girl’s boyfriends was repeatedly denied access to their hospital rooms.

Kaylie Pitzer and Zara Hull were vacationing in Cancun with their friends when they ordered some water at the resort’s pool bar on Aug. 2nd and suddenly slumped over.

A terrifying photo captured the students with their heads lying on the bar while they held hands before they were wheelchaired up to their rooms.

Hull, 20, was later rushed to a private hospital when she began convulsing from the drugs, which US doctors believed to be synthetic fentanyl, according to KWTV.

Her boyfriend, Jake Snider went with her to the ICU where she was “so sedated that she couldn’t open her eyes or speak,” Snider’s mother said of the horrifying ordeal.

“My son was not allowed to stay with her. We had to pay $200 for him to have a room upstairs for the night. It was the 2nd floor of the hospital and the floor was completely VACANT. The room was merely a hospital room,” Stephanie Snider wrote on Facebook.

Snider revealed that her son was too scared to sleep because he feared something would happen to him.

“He couldn’t get in downstairs again to see Zara until the next morning. We sat in 2 different countries- praying all night for safety and health,” she said.

When Jake Snider got down to Hull at 8 a.m. on Aug. 3, Snider said her son found Hull on a ventilator, with a catheter, and under heavy sedation.

Hospital staff allegedly said they were taking Hull to another location for an MRI, which the family speculated was a cover for trafficking.

“He told them to STOP EVERYTHING he’s taking her out. We told him, ‘do NOT let them take her, do NOT let them do anything else to her-we were working on getting them out!’”

“We believe they were planning to take her away to be trafficked or perhaps even to take her organs (which is what we were later told is a common thing that is done),” Snider’s post added. “They most likely would have done something to my son as well, possibly even death.”

The hospital allegedly had already demanded a $10,000 deposit prior to any treatment and then demanded another $25,000 “by Sunday morning to continue treatment or $5,000 to release, Snider previously said on Facebook.

Hull and Snider’s families attempted to find Dallas area hospitals to bring Hull, but were continuously rejected as the private hospital wouldn’t cooperate in sending over her medical records

Thirty hours later, a family friend secured a $28,000 private plane to medevac Hull and Snider to Texas where she hospital as Jake had obtained a partial list of medications Hull was given.

Pitzer and her boyfriend secured a flight to Dallas where they made a “beeline” to the Dallas hospital and the two best friends embraced, she told News 9.

Snider shared that she and the parents of the girls still can’t “close their eyes” over the “haunting”, while Jake “is never going to forget the hell he went through to get Zara and himself out of there alive.”

“For Zara and Kaylie, they have horrible feelings of only what we told them happened to them and yet no memory at all during the ordeal – but are tortured by the fact it happened to them,” Snider concluded.

Hull’s convulsions were her body reacting to the drugs.

She was released from the hospital on Friday but is expecting more medical bills with a GoFundMe set up for them.

This article was originally published in Oklahoma Voice.

OKLAHOMA CITY — New guidance from Oklahoma City Public Schools regarding a state mandate to teach the Bible requires teachers to reference the text’s historical and literary aspects only in the “specific instances” that state academic standards allow.

In issuing the guidance on Wednesday, Superintendent Jamie Polk also advised teachers to document detailed lesson plans and not to stray from district-approved curriculum materials.

The Bible must “not be used for preaching or indoctrination,” and Oklahoma City schools, the state’s second largest district, must maintain “absolute neutrality and objectivity” when referencing it, Polk said.

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“Our goal is to provide a balanced, objective approach that respects diverse beliefs by adhering to both state requirements and federal laws and regulations,” she said in a memo to teachers, who returned to work this week.

Last month, state Superintendent Ryan Walters ordered all Oklahoma districts to teach about the Bible’s historic and literary value starting in the 2024-25 school year.

His mandate also includes a provision that all classrooms keep a copy of the Bible, the Ten Commandments, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

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Walters’ order aims to add extra guidelines to the state academic standards, which are a lengthy list of topics and concepts that Oklahoma public schools must teach.

The Bible is not mentioned in the existing standards for social studies, English language arts, fine arts or music — the subject areas Walters identified for Bible instruction. However, the social studies standards require schools to teach about major world religions and the role of religion in the establishment of some American colonial governments.

Walters’ guidelines seek a much deeper exploration of the Bible, including analysis of biblical passages, instruction on its influence in Western civilization and American history, and references to it in literature and fine arts.

“To ensure our students are equipped to understand and contextualize our nation, its culture, and its founding, every student in Oklahoma will be taught the Bible in its historical, cultural, and literary context,” Walters said in a statement on the mandate.

The order quickly became controversial over concerns for church-state separation and local control of school curriculum. Leaders of multiple school districts have since said their districts won’t implement more instruction on the Bible outside of what state standards already require.

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Polk said her guidance is meant to give legal cover to teachers in case one of them faces a complaint.

“We have to protect teachers, and when this came out, one of the first things we did was we rallied together as a team, and I had the curriculum department at the table and I had the legal department at the table,” Polk said in an interview with Oklahoma Voice. “I asked the legal team, ‘If one of our teachers got in trouble because of the Bible, what would you need to defend them?’”

Documenting lesson plans, including the way teachers present the information to students, will be “essential,” she said.

The Center for Education Law, an Oklahoma City law firm that provides legal counsel to OKCPS, raised doubts over the viability of Walters’ Bible mandate. Any attempt by the state to direct how Oklahoma schools teach academic standards would infringe on local district authority and is “invalid under Oklahoma law,” the law firm wrote in a letter to schools.

Polk’s statement to teachers on Wednesday also referenced another, similarly polarizing announcement from Walters asking schools to provide a cost analysis of educating undocumented students. Walters said his administration would release guidance on the matter in the coming weeks.

Families don’t have to provide information on their immigration status to enroll their children in public schools. The Oklahoma City district doesn’t ask for these details, and Polk said it doesn’t plan to start doing so.

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The recent orders created a tricky start this summer to Polk’s tenure as Oklahoma City’s superintendent, but after 36 years in education, she said she knows “there’s always something” that will stir debate.

She said she still aims to maintain a working relationship with the state Education Department to ensure students “receive what they need in order for them to have a diploma in one hand and a plan in the other as they walk across the stage.”

“The topics change, but there’s always conflict,” Polk said while looking back on the national controversies that erupted over past decades. “But as Americans, how do we navigate problems?

“How do we come to the table then and let me hear your voice so I can accept your viewpoint, but you too then get to hear my voice?”

Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com. Follow Oklahoma Voice on Facebook and X.

Oklahoma’s Department of Agriculture says an invasive tick species has made its way to Oklahoma.

Tuesday, August 6th 2024, 9:54 pm

By:

News On 6

Oklahoma’s Department of Agriculture says an invasive tick species has made its way to Oklahoma.

An Asian longhorned tick was found in Mayes County. Those kinds of ticks are smaller than sesame seeds, the department says.

The tick can carry both human and animal diseases and can cause severe anemia in infected animals.

Oklahoma is now the 20th state to find the tick since it was found in New Jersey in 2017.

ODAF advises livestock owners to closely monitor their livestock.