Nearly 40 fentanyl bags found at school
Police say boy, 13, who overdosed at Hartford academy remains in ‘grave condition’
Police found nearly 40 bags of fentanyl stashed in multiple locations within a Hartford school in a search prompted after a student overdosed Thursday morning.
The student, a seventh grader at the Sport and Medical Sciences Academy, remains unresponsive and in “grave condition” after ingesting the drug, which subsequent tests confirmed to be fentanyl, police spokesperson Lt. Aaron Boisvert said Friday.
Two other seventh graders were believed to be exposed to the drug and were also transported to the hospital, officials said. Both were released to their parents Thursday night, Boisvert said.
The bags of the drug were collected by the federal Drug Enforcement Agency and tested at their lab, Boisvert said. The drug was found to be fentanyl, which confirmed earlier on-scene tests.
According to Boisvert, bags only contained fentanyl in powder form, and not other drugs. Drugs such as cocaine and heroin are sometimes cut with fentanyl because it is extremely potent, and cheaper to manufacture and purchase.
The fentanyl was “packaged in what you would see in streetlevel sales,” Boisvert said. The bags were also stamped with several identifying logos, he said.
Police believe the bags of fentanyl were brought into the school by the student who overdosed, Boisvert said.
Boisvert said police searched the home of the boy who overdosed, but did not comment further on the investigation.
The academy, located at 280 Huyshope Ave., is a college preparatory magnet school for students in grades six through 12 who are
“This is one more lesson that fentanyl is a poison. These drugs are a poison. And please, if you’re a parent, have that tough conversation with your child tonight.” — Luke Bronin, Hartford mayor
interested in sports and medical sciences.
The school contains students from several towns in and around the Hartford area. The student who overdosed is from Hartford, Boisvert said.
“All of our hearts and prayers are with the child who remains hospitalized in grave condition, and with his loved ones,” Mayor Luke Bronin said at a press conference outside the school Thursday.
“This is one more lesson that fentanyl is a poison. These drugs are a poison. And please, if you’re a parent, have that tough conversation with your child tonight,” Bronin added.
The school was closed Friday while the campus is thoroughly cleaned and decontaminated, Boisvert said.
The overdose happened about 10:30 a.m. at the magnet school at 280 Huyshope Ave. The boy collapsed in gym class and was unresponsive.
When staff learned that the boy had ingested drugs, staff sought out and found the other two boys, both 12, who had been with him earlier.
Boisvert said the other two students reported feeling dizzy, but their exposure level was “very minimal.”
“I want to extend my heart to the seventh grader, his entire family, the other two students that were involved, and to the entire school community at Sport and Medical Sciences Academy,” Dr. Leslie Torres-rodriguez, superintendent of Hartford Public, Schools said Thursday. “This has been, and continues to be, a really hard day for all of us.”
A Hartford schools crisis team was deployed earlier to provide counseling and other resources to students, she said.
The overdose triggered a “Code Yellow” alert, which means students and staff had to stay put while the boys were put into ambulances, and the school remained in lockdown for most of the remaining day.
All students had to walk through a solution of bleach and Oxyclean before leaving the school, in order to neutralize potential fentanyl exposure, police said.
Hartford schools don’t have Narcan:
Torres-rodriguez said Hartford schools are not currently equipped with Narcan, the brand name for naloxone, which is used in emergencies to treat narcotics overdoses.
School nurses and teachers are not trained in-school how to administer it, either. Torres-rodriguez said it is something the district may explore.
“As with every crisis incident, we will have debriefs not just internally, but also with our partners. In collaboration, we will determine what else we would need to consider,” Torres-rodriguez said Thursday. “This is something that we have to consider moving forward, and at the direction of our partners for us to determine to what extent the training and support is necessary.”
Mark Jenkins, director of the Connecticut Harm Reduction Alliance, suggests “we have to get to a point where Narcan and naloxone is saturated in our communities.”
Jenkins is the founded the alliance, formerly known as the Greater Hartford Harm Coalition, in 2014. The alliance distributes between 4,000 and 5,000 kits containing two doses of naloxone each year, he said.
Jenkins also conducts training programs where he teaches school nurses, and sometimes teachers, how to recognize a drug overdose and administer naloxone.
The school training programs have had more pickup outside the Hartford area, Jenkins said. The last time he conducted the training at a Hartford was three years ago at Bulkeley High School, he said.
“If we don’t reduce stigma and increase access [to Narcan], we will continue to see more fatalities,” Jenkins told The Courant Friday. “One has to be prepared. We have to be proactive.”
There is no guarantee a stockpile of Narcan and adequate training would have helped Thursday. Witnesses would have had to determine the boy was indeed suffering an opioid overdose. Hartford emergency responders also carry Narcan on their persons.
According to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, 1,374 people died in Connecticut due to accidental drug overdoses in 2020. It’s a massive increase from the 355 people who died in 2012, when the office began tracking accidental drug deaths.
In Hartford, there were 126 accidental overdose deaths in 2020. The overwhelming majority were caused by fentanyl, both in the city and statewide.
New Haven students hospitalized after eating chocolate edible:
In a separate incident, five students at a New Haven school were hospitalized Friday after consuming a chocolate edible that was found to contain THC, the compound in cannabis that produces a high.
According to officials, some students vomited and reported feeling lethargic. One of the five students alerted a teacher, who then reported the incident to police just before 11:30 a.m.
The substance was found to contain TCH in an on-site test, Mayor Justin Elicker said. The substance was sent to another lab to rule out other drugs.
Officials also found the package the substance was in, which denoted that it contained THC.
“We take the safety of our students and staff as very paramount to us,” said Dr. Iline Tracey, superintendent of New Haven Public Schools. The school has communicated with families and has guidance counselors on scene to support students, she said.
Two students have been released from the hospital and the others are recovering well, Elicker said. The students, who are 13 and 14, attend Bishop Woods Architecture & Design Magnet School.
“As a parent of a child, I’m going to go home tonight and talk to my children and say never to accept any food or candy or anything from anyone except for the cafeteria, or me or my wife,” Elicker said. “Obviously, it’s something none of us would ever want to see in our schools.”