Taking the psychedelic drug ayahuasca and a frog toxin called kambo have been condoned despite a man’s painful death after ingesting both substances at an alternative spiritual retreat in northern New South Wales.
Indigenous elder Uncle Andrew Johnston attended the Dreaming Arts festival in Kyogle to do a smoking ceremony and saw Jarrad Antonovich in the hours before he died on October 16, 2021.
Lying down by a tree, Antonovich complained of back pain and had a swollen neck, an inquest has heard.
“He looked kind of frog-like,” Johnston said on Thursday.
Antonovich was later taken into a temple on the grounds of the Arcoora health retreat to do another ayahuasca ceremony where, still complaining of pain and moaning, he had his feet massaged before passing out.
CPR was attempted while the ambulance was called with paramedics declaring the 46-year-old man dead on the scene.
Facing questions by Antonovich’s family, Johnston said he personally supported the use of ayahuasca and kambo at these types of ceremonies as they were based on the traditional knowledge of the South American people spanning back thousands of years.
The elder said that while he was “upset” at what had happened, the circumstances surrounding Antonovich’s death were extremely unlikely and had “nothing at all do to” with the substances he took.
At the festival, which was held at Arcoora health retreat, Antonovich ingested a brew made with ayahuasca. He also had his skin burnt in several places where kambo was rubbed into the wounds.
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Typically, the chemical substance known as kambo is scraped off the back of a live frog with a stick.
An autopsy found Antonovich died of a perforated oesophagus.
Professor Arthur Richardson, a medical specialist working at Westmead Hospital, said “repeated and severe vomiting” could have caused the tear.
Ayahuasca and kambo, which are illegal in Australia, have been known to cause vomiting with attendees at the retreat given buckets to throw up in.
Richardson said the swollen neck could have been caused by gases escaping through Antonovich’s perforated oesophagus, and that 1.5 litres of water consumed during the kambo ceremony may have leaked out through the hole into his insides as well.
For someone attending hospital with a torn oesophagus, there was an 80 per cent chance of survival, the professor said.
The inquest will examine how Antonovich suffered the injury, whether this was caused by the drugs or something else, and what happened to him in the hours before he died.
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