OD deaths rising on Blood Reserve
Three, possibly four, deaths confirmed in the last week
Chief Kyle Melting Tallow of the Blood Tribe Police Service is confirming three deaths, and possibly a fourth, as a result of the spike in opioid-related overdoses on the reserve this past week.
“So far we have three confirmed deaths in relation to the overdoses,” said Melting Tallow; “with a fourth one where we are still waiting to get results back. What we have been seeing with this last batch (of opioids) here is it is taking more Naloxone to revive the patient, and that is one of the reasons we are suspecting it is carfentanil versus fentanyl.”
It has been a terrible year for opioid overdoses on the reserve, confirmed Melting Tallow, with an average of 25 a month being responded to in the small community. But so far, with about 40 overdoses reported by EMS personnel in the last 30 days, Melting Tallow said it has been the second worst month this year.
“Back in February, we did have that bad batch (of suspected carfentanil) come through,” he said, “and it did have an impact both on the reserve here and in Lethbridge. This batch though looks like it is concentrated here on the Blood Reserve.”
“We are still investigating where the drugs are coming from,” added Melting Tallow, “and we don’t have any details to release on that right now.”
Melting Tallow said the opioid crisis has been devastating to families and the front line service personnel dealing with the fallout, but it is only one of many substance-abuse issues facing the community at the moment.
“Our partners at our health department are informing us there is about a 30-per-cent increase in methamphetamine use in the community,” he stated. “Methamphetamine use is a concern in general in Alberta, but when we are localizing it here on the reserve it does hit the community harder. There is that, and then the effects of opioid issue and then on top of that we have alcohol we are dealing with all the time.”
The only positive news Melting Tallow can convey is that after last week’s spike the number of overdoses is dropping over the past few days. EMS only reported two overdoses this past weekend, confirmed Melting Tallow.
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