Pa, son part of heavy OD toll
THE FATAL overdoses of a father and son at a family birthday party in Brooklyn were part of weekend tragedies that have become all too typical in the city.
Beginning at 12:30 a.m. Friday, when a 33-year-old man snorted heroin and passed out on a sidewalk in Elmhurst, Queens — but was saved by an EMS crew that gave him four doses of naloxone — the weekend was filled with a mix of death and near misses.
Across the five boroughs, officers responded to 15 incidents with 16 overdoses, police sources said. In addition to Carlos Andrade, 22, and his dad, Joseph Andrade, 44, eight other people died.
The weekend’s first death occurred in East New York, Brooklyn, where a 31-year-old man was found in the Oasis Motel on Flatlands Ave. at 8:20 a.m. Friday. The last was at 6:20 p.m. Sunday, when a 26-year-old man was found in an Upper East Side apartment. He earlier told a friend he had taken a Xanax, sources said, but police found white pills, white powder and a straw with residue in the apartment.
One death, that of a 36-yearold man in an E. 57th St. apartment, may have been the result of a suicide. That man was found hanging with a scarf around his neck. Six syringes were found nearby.
In some of the deaths, EMS, and in one case the FDNY, used naloxone in a failed attempt to reverse the overdose. But in six other cases, EMS successfully revived an OD victim. Naloxone blocks the effects of opioids, allowing many victims to breathe and regain consciousness.
“Upon being called to the scene of a drug overdose, we do everything possible to protect the life of the individual,” said Sgt. Brendan Ryan, an NYPD spokesman. “Narcan has certainly assisted in that effort.”
Cops investigate all overdoses, hoping to find the drug dealers and their distribution networks. In at least two cases, cops quickly developed leads.
After a 26-year-old man on Staten Island overdosed on heroin Friday afternoon, EMS saved him with naloxone — and he gave police the nickname of the dealer who sold him the heroin and the location, police sources said. The same morning, a 33-year-old man saved with naloxone gave police the Queens intersection where he had scored his heroin.
But police are not winning the street fight against the opioid crisis. Authorities have said 1,300 people died of overdoses in the city past year.
As Yovanny Santos, 41, a relative of the father-son Andrade victims put it, “These people selling drugs on the street, they don’t care about killing people for it. They don’t care. They just want to make money.”