Excerpts from wrex.com:
Every day, paramedics in Rockford are seeing drug overdoses and they believe the problem is getting worse.
“Sometimes you get five or six in a day, “said Firefighter/Paramedic Matthew Unger.
“If we go a shift without having one then we’re pretty lucky,” said Firefighter/Paramedic A.J. Dilonardo.
Getting called for an overdose every day isn’t out of the norm for Rockford firefighters. They are responding to overdose calls more than ever before.
In 2010, they had 181 overdose calls. It saw peaks and valleys the next few years; 241 overdose calls in 2012, 181 in 2015. But so far 2017 has overshadowed them all with 254 overdose calls just through October.
“Not always does it get called out as an overdose, sometimes it gets called out as an unconscious person, unresponsive,” said Dilonardo,
Rockford’s ambulances are stocked with Narcan. Paramedics say they sometimes have to give people two, three even four doses of it to save someone from their overdose. And it’s not just heroin they’re seeing people overdose on.
“St. Anthony has been giving us a lot of training in how to recognize not just heroin overdose but fentanyl, and even now tranquilizers. Stuff that’s used for large animals that people are getting their hands on, ” said Lt. Trevor Hogan
There’s another dangerous and powerful opioid paramedics are preparing to see hit our streets. One that could spike our overdose numbers even more. It’s called .
“There hasn’t been any cases around here. There’s certain areas in the country this has been occurring but it’s the next step we could be seeing,” said Hogan.
