Berks County has seen more than 100 overdoses and one death since Saturday from a “bad batch of drugs,” Berks County District Attorney John T. Adams said Tuesday afternoon, and officials are not entirely sure what is in the drugs.
“Those numbers are shocking, astronomical,” Adams said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon. “Clearly, a bad batch of drugs landed in our community, and we are taking steps to stamp out this problem.”
Adams issued a public health alert Monday in the wake of a weekend that saw about 70 overdose patients treated in local hospitals after they ingested a powerful drug cocktail that included a tranquilizer used by veterinarians to sedate horses. By noon Tuesday, the overdoses increased to 101, Adams said.
Adams was joined by Dr. William Santoro, chief of the division of addiction medicine at Tower Health, and Council on Chemical Abuse Executive Director Stanley J. Papademetriou in the Berks County Services Center to drive home the importance of the crisis.
Now officials believe there is another unknown substance in the drug cocktail causing the overdoses. They say it is resistant to Narcan, the drug used to reverse opioid overdoses.
“Narcan does not reverse the effect of whatever this toxin is,” Santoro said. “I look at this as more of a poisoning rather than an overdose.”
Multiple specimens have been sent to a specialty lab in an effort to determine what is in the drugs, Santoro said.
People who take the drugs experience a variety of symptoms.
Santoro said that after patients use one bag they become tired and fall asleep for a lengthy period. When they wake up they are disoriented, have trouble walking, are weak, have a slow heart rate and their blood pressure is up, he said.
“This does not match the symptoms we would expect from xylazine (the horse tranquilizer),” Santoro said.
Some patients have complained of hallucinations and shortness of breath, he added. The symptoms are lasting days and not hours or minutes.
“Some of the patients admitted into the hospital on Saturday are still experiencing symptoms today,” the doctor said.
Two-thirds of the patients that have presented with overdose symptoms had to be hospitalized, he added.
Papademetriou said his organization provides Narcan with no questions asked and urged people to arm themselves with it.
“The overdose crisis in Berks County rages on,” he said. “What we’ve seen this past weekend and what we are learning about this past weekend is something that no one could have imagined or could have expected.”
Since Sunday, officers from the Reading Police Department and the district attorney’s office have executed three search warrants in the city.
Two of the three raids recovered 500 blue bags that contained heroin, fentanyl and other drugs, Adams said.
“The blue bags seem to be the bags that contain the substances that are causing all of the overdoses in our community,” Adams said.
Officials believe the blue bags that have been found contain heroin, fentanyl, lidocaine, xylazine and clonidine.
Many of the chemical compounds are typical to what investigators find in street drugs, Adam said.
The health crisis began Saturday at 1 p.m. when Adams’ office was notified of a large number of overdoses were being seen at Reading Hospital.
Law enforcement quickly leapt into action, and by Sunday afternoon, Reading police and Berks County detectives executed a search warrant in the 200 block of North Eighth Street.
Officers seized 200 bags of suspected heroin/fentanyl, 10.5 grams of suspected bulk cocaine, 141 bags of suspected cocaine packaged for street sales, drug packaging material
During the search warrant, Jayson Cuadrado, 38, and Dimitri Ortega, 28, were taken into custody and charged with felony drug and related charges.
Law enforcement officials raided a home in the 100 block of Walnut Street in Reading on Tuesday and arrested three people.
Sixto Cruz, 62; Margos Hernandez, 38; and George L. Cruz, 53, were arrested and charged with possession, possession with the intent to deliver, delivery of heroin and cocaine and criminal conspiracy.
Officials seized:
- About 250 blue glassine packets each containing suspected heroin/fentanyl.
- About 100 packets of crack cocaine.
- One fully loaded sawed-off shotgun.
- Packaging materials.
- Two-way handheld portable radios.
- Over $16,000 in cash which was believed to be proceeds from previous sales of controlled substances.
“We have stopped some sources of these drugs,” Adams said. “But we do believe there are other sources and they may still be active.”
Source: Berkshire mont
Be First to Comment