NEWS RELEASE
BARRIE POLICE SERVICE
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Barrie Police and paramedics were kept busy Friday evening when they were called to deal with three separate drug overdoses in a three hour window.
Two of the overdoses were as the result of ingesting prescription narcotics not intended for the user and one was an individual attempting to manage pain by self medicating with heroin.
All three incidents proved nearly fatal.
Two Barrie men; a 27-year-old and a 39-year-old, were located without vital signs and were revived by paramedics.
The third person, a 38-year-old Barrie woman, was attended to prior to going unconscious as her mother located her and was able to call for help.
Police across Ontario are encountering a surge in drug related deaths stemming from the non prescribed use of Oxycodone and Fentanyl - two extremely potent prescription narcotics meant to manage acute and chronic pain and often as palliative care.
They are extremely lethal when taken improperly. It is very hard to predict how a body will react to any amount of these drugs, when not under a doctor's supervision and experimentation is often deadly.
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