Ambulance calls for drug overdoses have reached a three-year high in Tarrant County.
On Wednesday, MedStar Mobile Healthcare reported their paramedics treated an average of three overdose patients per day in August.
“To be quite frank, we are a little surprised and very concerned about what we saw,” said Matt Zavadsky, chief strategic integration officer for MedStar. “As recently as August, we had one of our highest overdose response volumes.”
This year, MedStar began working with the Recovery Resource Council to connect overdose survivors with substance abuse counseling and other community resources.
Bedford resident Brigitte Valentine said her brother-in-law Aaron Collins died of a drug overdose in June. Valentine now supports legislation that would require bystanders to assist overdose victims.
“A lot of people are too afraid of the cops” and afraid of getting “in trouble,” she said. “So, they would rather just have somebody die and have two kids lose a parent and not care.”
Most overdoses occur because of fentanyl — the leading cause of death for adults 18–45 in the United States.
In 2021, Texas reported an 89% increase from 2020 in fentanyl-related deaths.
Massive amounts of fentanyl are flooding across the Texas-Mexico border; four million pills were seized just last month.
In response to this epidemic, Governor Greg Abbot recently signed an executive order designating drug cartels as terrorists in Texas, as reported in The Dallas Express.
“Simply put, fentanyl is a clandestine killer,” Abbot said, instructing state agencies to “look for ways to enhance all aspects of the state’s response” to the fentanyl crisis.
Hundreds of Dallas residents have died from fentanyl, according to Dallas County chief medical examiner Dr. Jeffery Barnard.
Since September 21, 2017, Dallas County has had 464 fentanyl deaths, Barnard said. When he ran a report for 2022 alone, the medical examiner found that there were 128. “So, we’ve seen an uptick in cases that had fentanyl as part of their cause of death,” he said.
The Dallas Express recently reported on a Collin County man who was arrested in connection with the death of another man, 29, who overdosed on fentanyl.
Drug overdoses. I don’t have much heart when it comes to overdose deaths because most drug use cases started as a choice. One of my best friends OD’d in 2006 so I understand about loss. Fentanyl is a whole different and bigger demon. Recreational drug users are more apt to OD because fentanyl is incredibly deadly and it’s everywhere. Fentanyl distributers and sellers when caught should face the death penalty. Facilitating users with easier access to narcan or naloxone is NOT the answer though. As for Ms. Valentine’s suggestion above about legislation REQUIRING bystanders to help save a person ODing – I disagree. If the person who is ODing is near others who are using drugs, MOST of those other drug users won’t have the presence of mind to do anything. If the person OD’ing is around regular NON-drug users– of course those people will help. We don’t need legislation for that.