The family of the young Wangaratta man who shared his story of drug use gone wrong could not be more proud of him.
Jordy Hurdes posted a video that went viral this week of the aftermath of taking a party pill, which left him shaking and stuttering.
The video was shared more than 87,000 times, as was the message for other youths not to end up in the same place by using drugs.
Jordy’s father, Guy Hurdes, told The Border Mail the first few days seeing his son at Wangaratta hospital was “horrific”.
What started as the 20-year-old feeling under the weather, could end up as permanent neurological damage.
Mr Hurdes said doing something positive like posting the video warning made Jordy feel better.
“I've got nothing but admiration, it took a lot of guts for him to do that,” the father said.
“It was all his idea.
“He asked us what we thought.”
Most of the feedback on the Facebook post was positive, one person even saying the message stopped their decision to try a party pill.
The inevitable online trolls have been ignored.
Mr Hurdes said his son was not looking for sympathy or giving an excuse.
“He did this to himself, he's not no one else to blame,” he said.
“Jordy’s 20, but he's still our boy.”
Seeing what the drugs did to him brought a lot of tears to the Hurdes household.
“It puts your life in perspective,” Mr Hurdes said.
“Really there's no answer for it at the moment.”
The good news was his bloods tests showed there was no organ damage, but it was too soon to know if the neurological issues are permanent.
Jordy’s family has been helping with his rehabilitation by massaging him and keeping him calm to ensure he could sleep.
The young man was considering talking to local schools to continue spreading his tale of what can go wrong when takings drugs.
“Maybe he's found his calling,” Mr Hurdes said.
He said the prevalence of drugs in Wangaratta was “terrible” and Jordy’s consequences were a massive wake-up call.
Jordy did not have a big history with drug use before last week.
“These kids these days, they just think a party pill is harmless,” Mr Hurdes said.
“I'd just like to thank all of the people who sent messages, the ones that have reached out.”
