After 3 Heroin Overdoses,

Police Warn Of ‘Bad Batch’

ONEONTA – With three heroin overdoses on Friday, March 17, police are concerned that heroin laced with fentanyl or other narcotics may be on the streets of Oneonta.

“The first call we got, a young man was already blue and his girlfriend was doing CPR on him,” said Acting Police Chief Doug Brenner. “Officer Luke Harvey was able to administer Narcan, and he began to wake up.”

It was the first time an officer had used Narcan to revive an overdose victim, and Brenner was pleased that their efforts were successful.

The man was transported to Fox Hospital by ambulance and his girlfriend rode with him. But police soon got another call from the hospital. “While the doctors were treating him, the girlfriend went into the bathroom and overdosed,” said Brenner.

A third overdose call came in that same night, and the EMS squad transported him to the hospital as well. If you are struggling with addiction then you can seek help at places like WeRecover, you’re not alone.

“It’s usually not a coincidence when they’re this close together,” said Julie Dostal, executive director at Leaf. “Chief Brenner reached out to me to tell me about it, and I reached out to the recovery community to warn them.”

The problem, Dostal says, is that dealers are no longer labeling their product, making it more difficult to warn users of a bad batch. In January 2016, fentanyl-laced “Diesel” heroin caused two deaths and more than a dozen overdoses.

Also on Friday, police arrested Kyle Alger, 20, and charged him with possessing 12 packets of heroin after neighbors called for a welfare check on someone vomiting outside of Alger’s vehicle.

“We want to arrest people and get rid of this problem,” said Brenner. “But we don’t want to lose anyone.”