Man overdoses in middle of busy parking lot…
HYANNIS – Police and rescue rushed to the parking lot in front of Bobby Byrne’s for a man who was unresponsive.
At about a 8:30pm, a police dispatcher put out the call as possibly being some sort of epileptic seizure, with the patient not responding…
First responders quickly learned they were dealing with yet another heroin overdose. A needle, baggy, and shoelace (used to cut off circulation) were located at the scene.
The patient was responsive when placed into the ambulance to be transported to CCH. It’s uncertain if Narcan was used to revive this particular patient.
According to sources, for the first patrolman on scene, it was his second overdose call in as many shifts. Last night’s female patient in Marstons Mills was revived using CPR and Narcan was not necessary.
HN NOTE: I have been monitoring Barnstable Town Council meetings and would love to hear more discussion on what can be done to help police and rescue workers battle this ongoing epidemic. It’s not a pleasant topic, but something needs to be done on a larger level to raise awareness and turn the tide on this town-wide scourge. As we know, heroin addition is a complicated issue and there are no easy solutions. But I believe we’re looking at an ongoing public health crisis that needs to be talked about more. Perhaps discussions will lead to ideas and solutions that will help prevent addiction and save lives.
Tonight’s OD patient was a clean-cut white male in his mid-twenties. As we have learned so far from BPD statistics, overdoses effect all races, ages, and genders, but in Barnstable we’re seeing most overdoses happening within the white male, age 20 to 29 cohort (at a frequency which is nearly double that of the other cohorts). The second largest amount of overdoses occurs within the white female, age 20 to 29 cohort. Overdoses appear to occur significantly less within the Black and Asian populations within our town. While the BPD statistics are not completely representative of the larger numbers of overdoses that actually occur (this is for reasons that were laid out in yesterday’s article… Click here to read the Hyannis News article entitled “ODs RISING: Sudden spike in first half of December!”), they do give us invaluable information to consider when possibly looking at ideas that will do the most good. I’m not entirely certain, but perhaps these statistics would help when considering outreach efforts.
Hyannis News went out to take “nice” seasonal Cape Cod photos this afternoon, but it’s very difficult to ignore scenes like the one above, especially since overdoses still seem to be occurring much too often and much more than usual.
Here’s one of those “nice” seasonal Cape Cod photos, taken earlier today… HN would love to return to the days when photos of seagulls and sand dunes were the news of the day…
…but in the meantime, lives are at stake.
12/22/2014
Robert Bastille,
P.S. – Tonight's HyTown Vignette is brought to you by the Psychedelic Furs... [Finesse this one, easy peasy Japanesy...]
