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Niles also battling overdoses with 7 in 9 days
By Ed Runyan
NILES
Sept. 10 marked the start of a deadly and dangerous surge in Trumbull County drug overdoses, but not just in Warren, where there were 12 in four days.
Niles had two Sept. 12 when two men in Regal Cinemas at the Eastwood Mall Complex were found unresponsive. Four more overdosed Friday – eight days later – including one man who had been revived just two days earlier in the city. All the people who overdosed in Niles survived.
A man, 53, of Ann Street, was walking down Henry Street at 5:31 p.m. Wednesday and collapsed in front of a house. A woman called 911, saying the man was not breathing and his lips were turning blue.
Ambulance workers administered Naloxone, the opiate-reversing drug, and the man was revived and taken to St. Joseph Warren Hospital.
At 9:31 p.m. Sunday, the man’s son called 911, saying his father overdosed at a house on South Fenton Street and wasn’t breathing.
Ambulance workers again administered Naloxone. Workers from Lane Ambulance took him to ValleyCare Trumbull Memorial Hospital.
Capt. Jaisan Holland of the Niles Police Department said the seven overdoses reported to authorities in nine days is a spike compared with August, when there were only two.
Holland responded to the theater at 6:43 p.m. Sept. 12 and found the two men, age 35, of Warren, and 37, of Southington, leaning against each other, still breathing, but Holland couldn’t wake them up.
Ambulance workers revived one in the theater with Naloxone. The other didn’t recover until he had gone to the hospital, Holland said.
A mother and son both overdosed at their house on Henry Street on Friday, Niles police said.
The son, 26, called 911 at 8:57 p.m. to say his mother, 48, wasn’t breathing and he was giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Workers from Lane Ambulance stabilized her.
But ambulance workers realized that something was wrong with the son because he couldn’t stay awake, and they were fearful he might also overdose if he were left alone.
Workers called for a second ambulance for the son, but the son tried to flee.
Officers caught up to him in an abandoned residence on Reno Street, placed him under arrest, and he was taken to the hospital.
Another overdose was investigated at a woman’s house on Lafayette Street at 4:59 a.m. Friday when the woman, 38, was found with her eyes closed, struggling to talk.
She was taken to Trumbull Memorial by ambulance.