(Image: Public Health – Seattle & King County)
Health officials say the December 23rd death of a man found unconscious with two other people also suffering suspected fentanyl overdoses in a Boylston Ave apartment is part of an “Overdose Cluster” identified in the neighborhood.
Public Health – Seattle & King County says three people have died as part of two overdose events in the neighborhood. CHS reported on the Thursday, December 23rd incident here in which one person died and two others were reported revived by Narcan and taken to the hospital after a neighbor saw the man slumped through the apartment window and called 911.
Public Health could not immediately provide information on the two additional deaths or the second incident identified in the cluster but confirmed the three deaths among the six reported people who overdosed.
According to SPD, “a white powdery substance” believed to be fentanyl was found in the apartment “along with other narcotics and paraphernalia” in the December 23rd incident.
Public Health says that white powder fentanyl is at the core of the identified Capitol Hill cluster.
Relatively cheap and widely available, fentanyl is frequently being mixed with more expensive drugs and is sometimes pressed into counterfeit pills that look like pharmaceuticals before being passed along to unwitting buyers. Potency varies widely and, frequently, the combinations are powerful enough to kill.
Source: King County overdose deaths reporting
Overdose deaths from synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, have skyrocketed and accounted for 64% of the more than 100,000 drug overdose deaths in the country between May 2020 and April 2021. Fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that is similar to morphine but can be 50 to 100 times more potent, is now the number one killer of 18-to-45 year olds in the United States. King County statistics show fentanyl in 2021 overtook even meth as the drug most likely to be associated with a fatal overdose here.
Public Health says a drug alert poster is available for pick up at the Capitol Hill Needle Exchange on 11th Ave.
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