Fayette County officials are reporting an increase in opioid-related incidents, with emergency medical personnel responding to multiple calls involving these powerful drugs such as Fentanyl. According to Fayette County EMS Director Josh Vandever, his crews and area hospitals are seeing more apparent overdoses and he is concerned about the possibility that the frequency of this issue may be trending upwards.
“We have witnessed and/or been informed by an area hospital of several concerning incidents of opioid overdoses here in the county recently and while it could be coincidental that these events have happened in rapid succession of one another, it is at least worthy of alerting the public to the matter.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid typically used to treat patients with severe acute pain as a result of a traumatic injury or other medical causes. Under the supervision of a medical professional, fentanyl is safe and very effective medication,” Vandever said.
“Illicit fentanyl, primarily manufactured in foreign labs and smuggled into the United States through Mexico and through our ports, is being distributed across the country and sold on the illegal drug market.
Fentanyl is being mixed in with other illicit drugs to increase the potency of the drug, sold as powders and nasal sprays, and increasingly pressed into pills made to look like legitimate prescription opioids. Because there is no official oversight or quality control, these counterfeit pills often contain lethal doses of fentanyl,” he added.
"The Fayette County Sheriff's Office takes the presence of narcotics in our community very seriously and is committed to doing everything within our power to remove the substances and the individuals responsible for distributing them from our street,” said Lieutenant David Beyer of the Sheriff's Office. "All of our county's first responders are more effective when we communicate with one another and this situation is a perfect example of the Sheriff's office and EMS department working together to ensure the needs of our community are being tended to,” added Vandever.
Vandever is urging caution about taking any medication without knowing what it contains by adding, “The only way to be sure about the contents of a medication you are taking is by purchasing it, legally, from a licensed pharmacy. Medications circulating around the street are increasingly exposing unsuspecting citizens to opioids with no way of knowing they contain a lethal dose.”
