A group of people found at a Perth home after allegedly taking drugs was suffering from hallucinations, doctors say.
Western Australia police and St John Ambulance paramedics were called to a home in Victoria Park, in Perth's inner-city, on Tuesday about 11.40pm.
Officers found several people in unconscious or semi-conscious states.
Royal Perth Hospital's David McCutcheon said three of the nine patients, who were foreign nationals, were still in a critical condition in the ICU.
Western Australia Police and doctors were still unsure what drug had caused the life-threatening symptoms -including seizures and overheating.
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"They were brought to us in a state of agitated delirium, they were hallucinating, their hearts were racing," Dr McCutcheon said on Wednesday.
"Several of them have been put in a medically induced coma for their own protection and I really need to emphasise how seriously unwell they were.
"It appears the patients didn't know where they were, they were rolling around in their stretchers ... they had dilated pupils ... they were confused."
Dr McCutcheon said the patients were no danger to medical staff, but they required to be sedated when they arrived at the hospital.
"It was very lucky there was someone on scene who could call an ambulance because otherwise their lives would be put in danger," he said.
"Several of these people would have died I'm pretty sure without medical assistance."
Dr McCutcheon said the symptoms described were very common after illicit drug use but because there were hundreds of drugs on the market it was difficult to initially narrow down the cause of the reaction.
Royal Perth Hospital toxicologist Jessamine Soderstrom said she expected three of the patients in induced comas to remain that way for a number of days.
She said possible substances that could have caused the reaction had "amphetamine-like agents" such as 'flakka' or LSD.
Dr Soderstrom said drugs in this category overheated people's bodies.
"When your body overheats to a certain temperature for a certain period of time, it's like cooking an egg… you’re going to multi-organ failure. And patients die from that," she said.
But Dr Soderstrom stressed they were still trying to pin down the drug the group took.
"The drugs have been taken to the chemistry centre and staff will be doing analysis on the drugs and we'll be made aware in time," she said.
Doctors urged people to seek help as soon as possible if a suspected drug overdose was detected by calling emergency services.
Western Australia police said this was a reminder of the risks of taking drugs and educating people on these dangers.
