It is not often that drug overdoses make headlines, but a case of what seems to be laced heroin had almost 75 people rushed to hospitals in Chicago.
At least 14 people were sent to Mt. Sinai Hospital in Chicago by Friday afternoon, some patients with needles still stuck in their arms, as per the Chicago Tribune. After medical treatment, each case was reported as heroin overdoses. Emergency director, Diane Hicks, stated that the users had collapsed as soon as the initial drug injection happened.
“We suspect what is happening is the same thing that happened in 2006 when people were getting heroin that was cut with fentanyl, which is a very strong narcotic. That’s what we think is happening.”
While usually the patients at hand could have been treated with only one does of Naracan (heroin antidote), emergency officials say that double and even triple doses of the Naracan were used to stabilize the patients.
Fentanyl is a strong pain-reliever generally used during surgical procedures. The last time fentanyl was used to give heroin users more of an edge, it became an outbreak that lasted almost two years and took the lives of over 1,000 people.
