Camden, N.J., `Inundated` with Heroin Overdose Victims

June 11--A rash of heroin overdoses in Camden this month has ambulances scrambling from call to call, and one EMS worker says it's one of the worst outbreaks he has seen in his 29 years on the job.

University Hospital EMS, which handles calls in Camden, has responded to 50 heroin overdoses this month -- nearly the total from all of last month, when there were 60.

The overdoses this month have led to the deaths of four individuals, authorities said.

"We're getting inundated," said Donald Fisher, EMS operations coordinator for Camden. He said he could only recall one instance, about 10 years ago, when the number of overdoses was higher in the city.

Fisher said that EMS workers have found overdose victims in abandoned buildings, alleys, and cars, and that some of the victims have driven cars into poles and other moving vehicles because they overdosed while driving.

At Cooper University Hospital, doctors are seeing patients arrive in cardiac arrest or respiratory distress -- conditions worse than the sleepiness and slow breathing typically associated with an overdose.

Rick Hong, a doctor who has worked at Cooper since 2007, said he was concerned that a bad batch of heroin is causing the problem. Hong said this is the most sustained spike in heroin overdoses he has seen. Typically, there is just an increase for a day or two, he said.

Detectives are trying to determine where the drug came from, but the Camden County Police Department and Camden County Prosecutor's Office declined to elaborate on the investigation Wednesday.

Many of the victims were not from Camden, with some coming from as far away as Pittsburgh and Virginia, Fisher said.

On a single day last week, June 3, the Prosecutor's Office said, six individuals -- only one from Camden -- overdosed in seven hours in the city. One, a 39-year-old Lawnside man, died. The others were from Bordentown, National Park, and Lawnside. One man's hometown was unknown.

The six individuals, men and women, ranged in age from 23 to 47.

The surge has caused EMS workers and police officers to increasingly use Narcan, a drug used to revive heroin overdose victims. The police department said Monday that its officers had resuscitated four individuals with Narcan this month.

Fisher said Wednesday that EMS workers have used Narcan on nearly 30 individuals.

Last year in Camden County, 15 people overdosed in one day on a bad batch of heroin called "Magic," authorities said. Eleven of the overdoses occurred in Camden, and the rest in Gloucester City, Berlin, and Stratford.

Anyone with information on the recent overdoses is asked to call the police department's anonymous tip line at 856-757-7042.

mboren@phillynews.com

856-779-3829 @borenmc

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