Newshub journalist Patrick Gower has revealed a story about a person becoming temporarily paralysed from using nitrous oxide.
Gower and Karen O'Leary appeared on AM ahead of the return of their show 'Paddy Gower has Issues' on Wednesday night on Three at 7:30pm.
The show looks at nitrous oxide canisters - known on the streets as 'nangs' or 'NOS '- which are used as a recreational drug by a lot of people in New Zealand.
Gower told AM on Wednesday the show talks to a surgeon who reveals "quite a scary case" of a person becoming paralysed from using nangs.
"This surgeon does raise a quite scary case of a person on their first night of using nangs who had a vitamin B12 deficiency and didn't know and ended up in Auckland Hospital quadriplegic for a short time, but they do recover," Gower said.
"The damage to the spinal cord is not permanent, they come back."
But this confused AM co-host Ryan Bridge who questions, "they come back?" Gower responds by saying "they come back" but "it's not a laughing matter".
"This is a rollercoaster. First, it's okay, then we're paralysed, then for not long," Bridge said.
Gower told AM the surgeon also reveals there have already been 12 cases this year of people becoming temporarily paralysed from nangs.
"There is this element of harm for a small number of people who basically have a vitamin B12 deficiency. If you're vegan or something like that and if you take nangs you can end up being paralysed," Gower said.
"That was news to me as someone who's used a lot of nangs in their life, right from when I was at school age, right up until recently, I never even knew that this thing existed Ryan and does happen.
"My personal view is, hey, look, we need a bit of education around this, just check your B12, make sure if you are vegan or if you do have a B12 deficiency, be careful with using nangs because I didn't know a thing about that."
Patrick Gower hosts Paddy Gower Has Issues - watch it on Three or ThreeNow.
Watch the full interview above.
