Attleboro beset by ODs
Responders handle four calls in an hour
Four people overdosed on heroin in the space of an hour in the Attleboro area Wednesday morning — one fatally — and police suspect fentanyl could be to blame.
“I was alarmed as the chief when the hospital contacted me,” said Attleboro police Chief Kyle Heagney. “This opiate addiction has affected many families and individuals in the commonwealth. Everyone probably has one person in our lives at a minimum who has suffered from an opiate addiction.”
The ODs took place in Attleboro, Plainville and North Attleboro starting around 10:30 Wednesday morning. One overdose in Plainville was fatal, Heagney said.
“We strongly suspect fentanyl may be involved,” Heagney said, referring to the potent synthetic that continues to fuel the deadly opioid epidemic in Massachusetts and nationwide. However, no heroin was recovered, so it couldn’t be analyzed.
All four were given Narcan and rushed to Sturdy Memorial Hospital in Attleboro. Heagney took to social media, tweeting about the cluster of overdoses at 11:21 a.m.
“ALERT: Attleboro & area communities have had 4 heroin overdoses in the last HOUR (1 death resulting). Help save a life. Tell someone u know,” the tweet read.
“I felt in order to save lives, I needed to tweet this out, and maybe I could get the word out fast enough,” Heagney said. “It’s a state of crisis.”
Attleboro has seen 108 substance overdoses, mostly opioids, since January, said Attleboro police crime analyst Anthony Stevens.
In August, the state released data showing that 57 percent of opioid-related deaths screened in 2015 tested positive for fentanyl, and that number rose to 66 percent in 2016.
Some users, Stevens said, know what they’re getting and refer to fentanyl-laced heroin as “fire.”
But batches of heroin cut with the powerful painkiller can often make it into the hands of unknowing users, who are unaware of just how strong it will be, said Dr. Brien Barnewolt, chairman and chief of the Department of Emergency at Tufts Medical Center.
“If they shoot up with the same amount they’re used to, they could suffer respiratory arrest and potentially suffer cardiac arrest,” he said. “There’s no way for them to know, and when someone comes into the emergency room, there’s no way for us to know.”
The Drug Enforcement Administration’s New England Division began seeing batches cut with small amounts of the synthetic six months to a year ago, according to special agent Tim Desmond. These days, he said, most samples seized during arrests are predominantly comprised of fentanyl with only small amounts of heroin.
“It’s cheaper. It’s all to get more product to sell and distribute,” Desmond said.
And it doesn’t stop at fentanyl — the DEA issued a warning last month about carfentanil, a synthetic that is 100 times more potent than the already deadly fentanyl and 5,000 times more potent than heroin.
It has turned up in Rhode Island and Maine.