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Staff overdose deaths in Pennsylvania raise questions
News reports of overdose deaths of two staff members at a Pennsylvania recovery center featured some disagreement among officials as to whether the employees were addiction counselors.
Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan told NBC News that the two men were counselors, adding that residents of Freedom Ridge Recovery Lodge referred to them that way and that the residents had received their daily medications from the men. But the Pennsylvania Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs clarified that the West Brandywine Township facility is a recovery residence and that its operations and staff members are not regulated by the state.
CNN reported that the two men were found in separate rooms with drug paraphernalia near their bodies. “If anybody is wondering how bad the opioid epidemic has become, this case is a frightening example,” Hogan said. “The staff members in charge of supervising recovering addicts succumbed to their own addiction and died of opioid overdoses.”
