Tony Wood on finding meaning in Anna’s ecstasy death 25 years on
Anna Wood’s death from taking ecstasy sparked an intense debate about a drug never before seen in Australia. But almost 25 years later, the death of the 15-year-old schoolgirl still weighs heavily on her father Tony Wood’s heart.
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Anna Wood never wanted to change the world. But she did — her father Tony says — in death.
The 15-year-old, who died after taking ecstasy in 1995, sparked an intense debate about the drug never before seen in Australia.
Her death rippled through parliament, changed venue legislation and was the subject of countless stories in newspapers, on the radio and television.
The ripples from Anna’s death continue to be felt almost 25 years later.
She remains the most recognisable face in Australia’s ecstasy debate and a cautionary tale to today’s parents — many of whom were her age when she died.
On October 21, 1995, Anna snuck out with mates to a rave at the Phoenician Club in Sydney, where she took an ecstasy tablet bought from a female friend outside.
About 5am on October 22, she began feeling unwell and was taken back to a friend’s house.
Dry-retching, convulsing and lapsing in and out of consciousness, at 10am her parents were called.
They called for an ambulance and Anna was taken to Royal North Shore Hospital.
Mr Wood was holding her in his arms when she stopped breathing.
“Her brain started to swell and it would no longer fit into her skull, it was pushing into the back of her spinal column,” he said.
As Anna lay in a coma, Mr Wood watched his wife Angela muster a strength he could not.
“Angela wouldn’t leave Anna,” he said.
“She was on life support, tubes coming out everywhere but she washed her, she bathed her, she changed her, she did everything.”
Finally, the young doctor treating Anna told them he could not save her.
“She wasn’t Anna anymore … we said our final goodbyes.”
Declared brain dead, her life support was turned off on October 24.
The official cause of death was a cerebral edema caused by hyponatremia, or acute water intoxication, after taking MDMA, the main ingredient in ecstasy.
For her father, that day losing Anna is never far from his mind.
“It doesn’t matter what sort of death the universe has got planned for me. It’ll never be as hurtful as losing Anna,” Mr Wood told The Ripple Effect.
“The pain from that was excruciating.”
In the weeks that followed, the Woods learned the path of the drug Anna took, from the friend who sold the tablet, to the budding solicitor she bought it from, to the air hostess who carried it into Australia from Amsterdam.
Today, the Netherlands remains a primary manufacturing hub and exporter of MDMA.
A vocal opponent of pill testing, Mr Wood believes it wouldn’t have saved his daughter.
The Coroner’s report into her death stated the pill she took was pure MDMA.
Although she drank a lot of water, as advised when using the drug, her kidneys shut down. Her friends who took the same pill survived.
In the years since her death, Tony and his late wife Angela, who died in June 2016, committed themselves to spreading the message that drug use can only be tackled at the most basic level, between young people and parents.
He doesn’t support harm reduction or the pro-legalisation lobby, believing it would be a “disservice” to Anna’s memory.
“MDMA is the sort of drug that’s idiosyncratic so you just don’t know how it will affect anybody on any given day,” he adds.
“Your peers tell you how good it makes you feel, so you want to do it with them.
“That’s the scary part.”
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Originally published as Tony Wood on finding meaning in Anna’s ecstasy death 25 years on