APP.com - Cluster of overdoses plagues the Seasides
4/27/2014
New antidote sheds light on opiate abuse
In one month there have been four opiate overdose saves due to police officers using Narcan in Seaside Park/Heights area. The Desert Palm inn located along North Ocean Ave in Seaside Park where one of the victims was found overdosed Mark R. Sullivan/staff photographer On Friday April 25,2014 Seaside Park / MARK R. SULLIVAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
For a place more recently accustomed to regularly counting its dead from heroin overdoses, Ocean County is now keeping track of the living.
The antidote Narcan, a heralded nasal spray that reverses the life-threatening effects of an opiate overdose, is now in the hands of nearly half the police departments in Ocean County. The drug is credited with saving the lives of six people who overdosed on heroin or opioid-based prescription drugs this month.
More: Heroin epidemic at the Jersey Shore
But a troubling trend quickly has emerged in the three weeks since Narcan was first distributed to departments in the 630-square-mile county: Half of those overdoses occurred within a 1.1-mile stretch in Seaside Heights or Seaside Park.
While officials tout their new ability to save a life with the same ease as taking a decongestant from the home medicine cabinet, they also are concerned by the early results of the Narcan program.
The first save came on April 6, when a man in his 20s overdosed on heroin at the Dry Dock Motel on Lincoln Avenue in Seaside Heights. The second and third saves were on Tuesday, one just before 3 a.m. at the Desert Palm Inn on North Ocean Avenue in Seaside Park, and another around 8:30 p.m. at a home on Sampson Avenue in Seaside Heights. Three others were saved last week, in Lacey,Berkeley and Manchester.