Escambia County plagued by fentanyl: 'We're being compared to Huntington, West Virginia'

Fentanyl overdoses in Escambia County are doubling every year. How bad is that?

"If you're not familiar, we're being compared to Huntington, West Virginia," Escambia County EMS Chief David Torsell told the Escambia County School Board on Thursday. "Huntington, West Virginia, was the No. 1 place with drug overdoses for many, many years."

This week, Torsell was invited to attend a school board workshop meeting to fill in board members on the ever-multiplying problems local health care providers are encountering related to fentanyl-induced overdoses.

This week: Escambia inmate charged with homicide after cellmate dies of fentanyl overdose

Earlier this year: ECSO narcotics unit seize $500,000 in meth and fentanyl in Ensley drug bust

While fentanyl has yet to cause major issues within local schools, Torsell's intent Thursday was to take a proactive step toward keeping it that way.

"I appreciate you coming because when I see the numbers, they are disturbing to me too," said Kevin Adams, the school board chairperson and its District 1 representative. "Parents need to know marijuana could be laced with this stuff, cocaine, any kind of drug. So if their child is starting to get into a drug problem, they need to seek immediate help, because that fentanyl is a killer."

Escambia County fentanyl overdoses up by 113%

Escambia County is averaging 5.56 fentanyl overdoses per day. While not all fatal, some are. To illustrate how fastthe problem is worsening, Torsell said Escambia County is seeing a 113% increase in fentanyl related incidents per year.

Escambia County recorded 1,085 fentanyl related overdoses in 2021.

As of noon Thursday, Escambia County EMS had already responded to 1,092 on-scene overdoses this year — 33 last week alone — according to the Emergency Medical Services dashboard on MyEscambia.com.

Noting the county had already surpassed 2021's overdose total and it's only July, Torsell predicted "We are going to double last year's numbers."

More on Huntington: Over two dozen overdoses in five hours in W.Va. city

A step forward, a step back: COVID halts Huntington's addiction crisis progress

In 2021, he said, Escambia County EMS administered 1,391 doses of Narcan, a medication used to stop fentanyl and opioid overdoses.

Within the first six and a half months of 2022, EMS had already administered 964 does of Narcan.

"Fentanyl has become the bane of our existence," Torsell said, speaking on behalf of the county's EMS department. "Previously, you go back years, you’re talking about cocaine, marijuana, things like that. But now, everything as we're seeing has fentanyl in it."

'By the time they are aware, it's often too late'

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid analgesic used to treat pain, similarly to morphine, but is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine.

Drug dealers will often put fentanyl into illegally sold recreational drugs to enhance their effects. People who buy those drugs are often unaware that fentanyl has been added.

"By the time they are aware, it's often too late," Torsell said.

Local EMS workers often know when a new batch of drugs is brought into a specific neighborhood or area.

About three months ago, EMS personnel tracked 19 overdoes in one day that all occurred within a six to eight block square area.

"(We) realized what was going on," Torsell recalled "‘Oh, they put a new batch of drugs on the streets. They're giving them out for free, and they're testing it. They want to see if it's going to work. They want to see — to them — if it's good product."

For certain individuals who struggle with addiction, a single overdose is not always a wakeup call.

"We know our, what we call our 'frequent flyers,' the ones we see all the time for drug overdose, the use of drugs," Torsell said. "We know them well — so much that we can almost recite their medical history to them when we see them."

There are occasions when EMS responds at 6 a.m. to a person who is overdosing. The person is taken to a hospital. They're discharged after their medical situation is found to be less severe than expected, and later the same day, they will overdose again and be transported back to the same hospital that afternoon.

"Wash, rinse, repeat. It's the same cycle over and over. So, we have to do something differently. We have to be more than reactive, we have to be proactive," Torsell said.

EMS has plans to open a new program to proactively combat addiction in partnership with other local health care providers that will include addiction therapy and bring some new services to the area.

Multiple school board members thanked the EMS chief for his Thursday presentation.

"We're not seeing a tremendous issue with the school or anything like that — which is very fortunate, knock on wood — but we want to make sure we keep it that way," Torsell told the News Journal.

Colin Warren-Hicks can be reached at colinwarrenhicks@pnj.com or 850-435-8680.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Fentanyl overdoses in Escambia on track to double from 2021 to 2022