Just
when you thought it was safe to leave the house, out pops another
breathless piece of scarelore warning us about a new appearance of
that bogeyman of our era, AIDS.
(A cousin to this scare has to do with deliberate infection of
young people who are stabbed with contaminated needles by anonymous
assailants at movie theatres and dance clubs. See our Pin Prick
Attacks page for more about this related legend.)
This time it's drug addicts placing their used, HIV-laden needles
into pay phone coin slots in order to stab (and infect) hapless,
innocent victims who want nothing more than to retrieve a coin or
two and receive death sentences for their troubles. (Drug addicts
have been using syringes and needles for decades -- you have to
wonder why they didn't start leaving them in Pepsi cans and pay
phone coin slots until after AIDS came to world-wide attention.)
We're told that this isn't a tale from some "hearsay urban legend
source," but rather from "phone company workers, through the EMT
instructor." In other words, the one and only source for this
warning is an unnamed EMT instructor somewhere who heard it from an
unidentified telephone company workers somewhere. You can't beat
that as a reliable source . . .
To date, there are no known instances of contaminated needles
turning up in pay phone coin returns, let alone an unsuspecting
telephone user's being infected by one. "We have been looking at
all of our phones and have not found a single instance of where
this has happened," Bell Atlantic spokesman Cliff Lee said in a
November 1998 article in The Buffalo News. A December 1998 article
in the Chicago Tribune stated:
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has no reports of any such
infection, nor does the Howard Brown Memorial Health Center in
Chicago that treats many HIV cases. The Illinois, Cook County and
Chicago Departments of Public Health and the Chicago Police
Department have no records of any such incidents.
The Illinois Public Telecommunications Association, an umbrella
group representing about 150 coin-operated phone companies, has no
reports of needles found in pay phones, and Ameritech says that in
our five-state region only once, more than two years ago, did
someone find a hypodermic needle in a coin slot. That person was
not stuck.
On 9 February 1999 two people were injured in Pulaski, Virginia,
when they put their fingers into the coin return slots of pay
telephones and were jabbed by (uncontaminated) needles left in
those slots. The next day, four hypodermic needles were found --
wrapped in cotton, thus not presenting much of a danger to anyone
-- in post office mail slots and a night deposit box in nearby
Wythe County. No one was infected or seriously injured in those
incidents.
In 2000, some thoughtful soul re-worked the original scare about
coin returns on pay phones into one focused on a variety of vending
machines and set it in Canada:
[Collected on the Internet, 2000]
I am forwarding this email about something really scary I heard
about today. Because it is certainly worth about, I am sending this
out to you . . . Please read the following anecdote:
On an average day in your life, you are out and decide you are
thirsty. You notice a pop machine in your surroundings. You go over
to the pop machine, & drop in a loonie. After collecting your
beverage, you reach in the little compartment to collect your 50
cents change. Once reaching in, you feel a sharp prick on the
finger you inserted into the change box. Your finger is bleeding,
you bend down to look inside the small area to see what pricked
you. What you see is a small needle, with a note beside it: "YOU
NOW HAVE THE H.I.V. VIRUS", it reads.
***This is not some scary fiction story! THIS IS NOW HAPPENING IN
ALBERTA!!!...
Please read on and then pass this warning to people you care about.
At our student council meeting this afternoon, our advisor (a
teacher at the school) told us that last week, she received a phone
call from a friend at the University of Lethbridge. THE ABOVE
SCENARIO HAPPENED THERE RECENTLY at the University of Lethbridge)
!!!
How many it happened to or why not many have heard about it is
beyond me, but THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING!!!!!!!!!!! Police suspect
that this is the work of a particular cult in western Canada. It
(these incidents) began in Saskatchewan and have now spread into
Alberta. The prime targets are major cities, but there's no saying
that it couldn't occur in smaller towns.
It happened in Lethbridge and they are on the alert especially in
Edmonton and Calgary.
What happens is that somehow someone inserts a syringe or a
needle/pin that has been infected with the HIV virus into a vending
machine compartment. Beside it they leave a note saying that
whomever has been pricked and is now infected.
I KNOW IT SOUNDS CRAZY, BUT TAKING A PEEK INTO ANY COMPARTMENT OF
ANY PUBLIC MACHINE (PAY-PHONE,POP MACHINE, VENDING MACHINE) ***
BEFORE STICKING YOUR HAND IN THERE COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE ***
Whether it is where you'd get your change, or where you'd reach in
and collect a can of pop or pick up a bag of chips... Be on the
look-out for a note or a needle. In order for someone to read the
note or get pricked by the needle, they must be in a place where,
if they checked first, anyone could see it.
***Don't let yourself become a victim & Please PASS
on!!!***
Despite the forceful claims made in this later version of the "AIDS
needle found in coin return" scare, there have not been any such
incidents in Edmonton, Calgary, or any other Canadian city.
Moreover, officials of the University of Lethbridge (Alberta) have
been bedeviled by inquiries about this story since it first
appeared on the Internet. All who have asked have been told the
same thing: There haven't been any such attacks on their
campus.
This newer version of the "AIDS needle found in coin return" tale
incorporates the "AIDS announcement note" motif of the earliest
AIDS urban legend, the venerable AIDS Mary. (Fellow who foolishly
invites woman he doesn't know to spend the night wakes to find her
gone and "Welcome to the world of AIDS" scrawled in lipstick on his
bathroom mirror.) This same motif is used in the later dance club
versions of the "Pin-Prick Attacks" legend. (Girl dancing at
popular nightclub feels a small prick on her arm, then finds the
note stuffed into her pocket, taped to her back, or pressed into
her hand.)
A few facts and common sense tips:
Yes, it's technically possible (and fairly easy) to detach a needle
from a syringe and drop it into a pay phone coin slot.
No, there have not been any news reports of anyone's being infected
(with anything) from a needle left in a pay phone coin slot.
Whereas a health care professional uses a syringe once before
disposing of it, addicts hang on to their injection equipment until
they can replace it. The desire to contaminate another with a
serious illness is going to come in a far distant second to the
need to keep the item for personal use until a new one is
secured.
The big scare, of course, is contracting HIV after being jabbed by
a needle. HIV lives only a short time outside of its host medium.
Contact with an HIV-contaminated needle would have to occur while
the contamination was still fresh to present a danger of
infection.
Some people think it's funny to stick yucky (and dangerous) things
on parts of pay phones, so it's always a good idea to examine the
handset, push buttons, and coin slots of pay phones before touching
or using them
