2 days without OD's So far it's a good week'
Dayton officer can’t recall such a break in his years fighting crisis.
Dayton police officers — who at one point this year were sent to up to 50 overdoses a week — had two days this week without overdose calls, an occurrence Maj. Brian Johns couldn’t recall in battling a four-year-long opioid crisis.
“So far it’s a good week,” Johns said Thursday. “There’s still a lot of work to come. But definitely it’s a nice break from the death.”
Johns first thought the zero on Monday’s report might be a com
puter glitch, but as the week progressed — just two overdose calls Tuesday and none Wednesday — the numbers proved accurate. “I haven’t seen this in several years, going from 50-something down to 20-something a week, to so far where we’re looking at 2,” he said.
COMING SUNDAY
The Dayton Daily News’ coverage of the opioid crisis in the Miami Valley continues with a report about how pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs like heroin and fentanyl may wind up as contaminants in the region’s water.
Barbara Marsh, assistant health commissioner, Public Health — Dayton & Montgomery County, said it’s premature to declare a course reversal on drug overdoses, which took 349 lives last year and 484 so far this year.
“While it’s still too early to call this a trend, we are encouraged that we are beginning to see a decrease in overdoses,” she said.
Since May, when 80 people died, the preliminary number of overdose deaths has fallen: 52 in June, 40 in July, 41 in August and 17 this month as of Thursday.
There has yet to be a day without an overdose in the county outside Dayton, but
the calls have not been as frequent, said Bruce Langos, chairman of the Montgomery County Drug Free Coalition and director of the Montgomery County Criminal Intelligence Center.
“We’ve seen the overdose rate in the last 10 to 15 days drop probably roughly in half compared to where we were,” Langos said. “So maybe we’re all doing something right.”
As the region’s opioid crisis intensified during the first half of this year, Montgomery County hospital emergency departments received 2,565 overdose patients — more than any other Ohio county, including Cuyahoga County, the state’s most populous.
Overdose emergency calls in the county averaged 363 a month in the first eight
months of the year. In the first 11 days of this month, 71 overdoses were reported to the Criminal Intelligence Center.
Law enforcement and health officials aren’t exactly sure why the overdoses are declining, but say a number of local efforts — including a communitywide collaborative response to the crisis — may be moving the needle.
Making more treatment options available is playing a role, said Jodi Long, direc- tor of treatment and supportive services at the Montgom- ery County Alcohol, Drug
Overdoses decrease
Fatalities from drug intoxication have dropped since a high of 80 in May. There have been 484* accidental overdose deaths in 2017 as of Sept. 14. Accidental overdose deaths in Montgomery County
Overdose responses down
Police and EMS in Montgomery County have seen a reduction in overdose responses from earlier in 2017. As of Sept. 11, there have been 2,977 responses in 2017. Addiction & Mental Health Services board.
Long said the number of residential detox beds in the community went from eight to 14 in little more than a year as more providers started offering medication-assisted treatment. Outpatient detox is also now offered 24/7 through Samaritan Behavioral Health, she said.
“Increased access to treatment is encouraging people to seek treatment so they are not at risk of overdose,” Long said.
Johns said authorities have had some success dislodging dealers and disrupting the supply of an extremely potent opioid.
“If you look over the last months, all our law enforcement — from the city, the county, DEA and the FBI — we try to focus on those people who are selling fentanyl, because that’s what was killing people.”
OVERDOSE DEATHS IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY CITIES AND TOWNSHIPS, 2017
Overdose emergency calls in the county averaged 363 a month in the first eight months of the year. In the first 11 days of this month, 71 overdoses were reported to the Criminal Intelligence Center.