Andy Dick has checked into rehab, days after suffering an apparent overdose in the street.
Andy Dick has checked into rehab.
The 59-year-old actor has agreed to seek help after he was photographed outside a building in Hollywood following an apparent overdose earlier this week and praised his old friend Jennifer Ginenez – who he appeared on Celebrity Rehab with – and her husband for their help and support.
He told TMZ: “Jenny Gimenez is my sister who saved me with Tim.”
Andy will reportedly be entering a treatment facility in Palm Springs, California, but just a few days ago he insisted he had no plans to do such a thing.
Asked if he would seek “professional help”, he insisted: “I’m not going to be in rehab.”
And pressed on if he was in a “good place” at the moment, he added: “Love it, I’m surrounded by my two friends … it’ll be hard for me to escape from them, but I will escape.”
TMZ had shared shocking photos of Andy earlier this week, in which he was slumped over outside a 7-Eleven while two friends tried to help him.
Eyewitness Shawn Harrell, told People magazine: “His body was limp. It was like deadweight. It was blue. I thought he passed away.”
Shawn had thought the scene was “more than likely part of a movie” having seen a “group of guys” in the area with “video cameras everywhere”.
He said: ““That particular day, I was walking. I got down there. There was a group of guys down there and they had video cameras everywhere. So seemed like they were filming a film or something…
“I heard some stuff like, ‘Wake him up! Man, wake him up!’ And people [were] running around, and I’m like, ‘What’s going on down there?’
But when he heard the shouting again, Shawn realised something was wrong and tried calling for help but had problems getting a response.
He said: “[Dick] was slumped over at first. And then when they finally started shaking him and doing all this stuff, he came [to],”
But he then saw Andy “slumped over” and paramedics arrived shortly afterwards, who “put that Narcan stuff in him.”
Shawn was shocked by how calm the star appeared afterwards.
He said: “Police [were] talking to him. I went over there and had a joke with him. I was like, ‘Hey man, they brought you back to life. You were gone for a minute.’ He’s like, ‘I know.’ He wasn’t upset about it. It seemed like he already had the experience before, to me. The way he acted about it. All nonchalantly about it.
“He was blue. His hands [were] blue and his face was blue.”
And the Road Trip star recovered quickly.
Shawn said: “I’d say about five minutes. From the time he was blue, from the time I got to have a conversation with him, once he was back cool again? Somewhere between five or 10 minutes.
“I don’t know who he left with, but he left with somebody.”
A Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) spokesperson confirmed to People that they had responded to the scene but declined to name the person involved.
The representative added: “But we did respond to that location for an overdose. He was not transported to the hospital.”
And the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) added: “The LAPD did respond for an ambulance overdose. This was a medical emergency issue.”
The comedian – who has three adult children, Lucas, 37, Jacob, 31, and 28-year-old Meg – has struggled with drug and alcohol addiction in the past.
Andy Dick checks into rehab
