A victim of needle spiking has said she feels “so lucky” that she was not injected with heroin during her attack. 

In November, Jess Rolland’s brother returned home from London for a visit and the pair of them arranged to meet their cousin in a local pub.

They ordered drinks but Jess soon began to feel unwell.

“Halfway through the night, I noticed my right thigh getting really, really sore,” she told The Hard Shoulder. 

“I said it to my cousin… and she said, ‘Do you want to go check it out?’

“We went to the bathroom and I pulled down my pants and there was a huge bruise on my leg [and] I thought I might have knocked into a table or something.

“I continued with my night; my cousin didn’t see anything, she didn’t think I was off or anything until a few hours in.”

Somehow, Jess ended up in a town and blacked out on the table.

She has no memory of the night but does recall waking up to find a puncture hole in her leg.

At that point, she had never heard needle spiking but her cousin suggested it might have happened to her.

Jess googled it and realised she had indeed been a victim of it.

“I went to A&E and they told me I was so lucky that it wasn’t a heroin needle,” she said.

“If I had been injected with heroin, that could have ruined my whole life.

“I could have been addicted to heroin, it would have just messed my whole life up.

“They said I was so lucky it wasn’t that.”

'I still went and took a morning after pill'

Staff were also concerned she might have been sexually assaulted.

“Honestly I didn’t have a clue,” she said.

“I’m so thankful that I was sexually assaulted or anything like that but I still went and took a morning after pill just in case - my mother wanted me too.”

Afterwards, she went to a local Garda Station but left after a woman on duty was “so rude” to her.

In 2022, there were 106 incidents of spiking reported to An Garda Síochána.

The Non-Fatal Offences against the Person (Amendment) (Spiking) Bill 2023 is currently being considered by the Oireachtas; if passed it would designate spiking as a specific criminal offence.

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Main image: Jess Rolland and Kieran Cuddihy.