Cincinnati responds to 30 heroin overdoses in one day

Описание: CINCINNATI (WKRC) - Cincinnati emergency crews responded to 30 heroin overdoses in the course of one day Tuesday, August 23.

Officials said most of the overdoses were located in the west side of Cincinnati. The Cincinnati Police Department said in a statement Tuesday evening they were not sure of the exact cause of the increase yet. They warned anyone who may be using dangerous drugs to be aware of the increased danger.

Three people overdosed in one house and one man overdosed while driving through an intersection. Another overdosed with his child in the car at a gas station. Fire crews worked quickly to save as many lives as they could.

The problem continues to plague cities across the country. In Charleston, West Virginia 26 people OD'd in four hours. All of them were revived. The same couldn’t be said for the Akron area. In a three-week span in July 2016, 173 people overdosed. Sixteen of them died.

The scary part was that it was not just heroin that was causing the deaths. The uptick in overdoses was being linked to a drug that was used to tranquilize elephants called carfentanil. Most people have no idea it's mixed in with other drugs. Carfentanil is 100 times as powerful as fentanyl which killed hundreds in the Tri-State area in 2015.

Narcan no longer brings everyone back to life.

The coroner said about it earlier in August, “Bottom line, this would be a good time to get clean. Be a great time to get clean and stay clean. Because we are really afraid of what we are coming up against here."

It was too early to tell if the spike in overdoses Tuesday night, August 23, had anything to do with carfentanil. But, it was found in several places throughout the city of Cincinnati in early August 2016.

Anyone with information that could be helpful to the investigation is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 352-3040.



Local 12 News will update with more information on the overdoses as it becomes available.