Beaver County Drug Overdoses Continue To Climb
CENTER TOWNSHIP (KDKA) -- A man in his 20s overdosed on drugs Wednesday in Center Township, Beaver County.
Center Township Police Chief Barry Kramer says it was fortunate the man was revived with Narcan, which is a medicine used to reverse an opioid overdose.
In less than a week, Beaver County has witnessed a spike in overdoses; a total of 27 in the last five days, including three deaths.
Beaver County District Attorney David Lozier says the batch of heroin now hitting the streets in the county "is new, it's bad, and there's something in it that's killing people."
Lozier told KDKA-TV's Ralph Iannotti, "We don't want to specifically identify it, because we don't want addicts to go hunting for it, but people have to know that it's out there, and it's mixed with something that's fatal."
Lozier says his office is working with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Pittsburgh, the FBI and DEA trying to track down users and the sellers.
The district attorney notes that there were 30 opioid deaths in 2014 in the county, 37 last year, and up until last month, there were 29 confirmed fatal opioid overdoes county-wide, with 15 more suspected overdoses still under investigation.
"The drug dealers don't care about the quality of drugs they sell you," Chief Kramer says. "In fact, they often put high doses in their drugs, because the higher the dose, the more people overdose, the more people want that drug."
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