The former UFC fighter can be heard ranting at hospital staff and police that he has a broken vertebrae and can’t get his pain medication.
UFC Hall of Famer Stephan Bonnar is not in a good place right now based on recent videos the retired fighter shared to his Instagram account on Saturday afternoon.
The first clip shows Bonnar arguing with Henderson Hospital Emergency Ward staff in Nevada, claiming they refuse to treat him for a fractured vertebrae injury suffered in a pro wrestling match. The second, labeled ‘showdown with LVPD: Part 1,’ has Bonnar screaming at police that were called to the hospital after he wouldn’t leave.
“I’m coming to get treatment for a fractured vertebrae,” Bonnar yells at the police in the video. “I can’t sit, dumbf—k, my back’s broken! Stephan Bonnar, I’m a UFC Hall of Famer. I don’t have my license on me or my debit card. You know why? Because the pharmacist at CVS forgot to give it back to me. You know when? When she was telling me I couldn’t get my 7.5mg Norcos because, guess why, I recently had 10mg Oxys filled.”
“So they could only give me Tramadol,” he continued. “The Tramadol is awful, it doesn’t work. And the Oxycodone 10mgs are all gone. So I came to the emergency room finally after suffering with a fractured lumbar vertebrae, doctor, for a week!”
Oxycontin abuse is extremely widespread in the US, and part of a late effort to tackle the issue involves more regulation on when doctors and pharmacists can provide opioid based painkillers to patients. It sounds like an earlier prescription for Oxycontin may have tripped some sort of internal check at the pharmacy that put a hold on Bonnar’s ability to get a Norco (hydrocodone) prescription filled.
That led to the meltdown witnessed on Bonnar’s Instagram, and whether what happened is the result of extreme pain from his injury or straight up opioid addiction (or both), you can tell Stephan is in a bad place. Several fighters reached out through the comments section, offering to help.
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It’s been a rough couple of years in general for Bonnar, who was dragged incoherent out of his car by police and arrested for his third DUI in 2018. In 2020, he revealed he was suffering from a brain condition related to CTE. And another series of Instagram videos posted in April of 2021 had Bonnar causing a scene at his local gym after they ejected him for refusing to wear a mask.
Here’s hoping the man gets the help he needs following this latest incident.