Over two dozen overdoses in five hours in W.Va. city

Emergency services in a West Virginia city responded to more than two dozen overdoses in a five-hour period on Monday.

Beginning at about 3:30 p.m. Monday, 27 people overdosed within the next five hours in Huntington, a city in Cabell and Wayne counties that rests on the Ohio River.

News outlets reported that 26 had overdosed in a five-hour period and all survived, but Huntington Police Chief Joe Ciccarelli said that the blood work of a 27th victim who was originally reported as a medical call had “multiple drugs” in the individual’s system. That person died at the hospital.

Emergency services received the majority of the calls earlier in the five-hour stretch. About half of the victims were located within a mile of each other, Ciccarelli said.

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Cabell County Emergency Medical Services Director Merry said naloxone—a drug that reverses an opioid overdose—was administered 12 times, three of those on one person.

The amount of calls exhausted emergency service resources. “It really taxed the system,” Merry said.

A potent batch of heroin, potentially containing something stronger, was blamed for Monday’s numerous overdoses.

Merry attributes the number of survivors to the teamwork between EMS, the Huntington Police Department and the Huntington Fire Department that evening.

It's not unusual for the city to have five or six overdoses in a 24-hour period, said Ciccarelli, but to have seven people at one location—which happened on Monday—was “remarkable.”

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2014 West Virginia had the highest rate of overdose deaths in the nation at 35.5 deaths per 100,000 people. This year, Cabell County alone has had 362 overdoses through June 16, 25 of which were fatal.

Merry emphasized that the area is trying to resolve the drug issue: “We have not buried our heads.”

Huntington established the Mayor’s Office of Drug Control Policy to address drug addiction in 2014. That and diversion programs through the courts, local treatment facilities, and a syringe needle exchange program run by the health department are a few of the ways the city is trying combat the drug problem.

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Both Merry and Ciccarelli cited the state’s declining economy and loss of jobs over the last several decades as a reason for the state’s drug abuse statistics. Ciccarrelli noted West Virginia’s large number of manufacturing jobs, including the timber and coal industries, create higher risks of injury, which can lead to addictions to prescription medication.

Merry noted that the loss of jobs in the coal industry has affected “everything” in West Virginia.

Follow Samantha Nelson on Twitter: @samm1son