

He said addicts sometimes stay clean for a while in recovery and then relapse and use again when their tolerance for heroin is low. Richie Webber, 24, of Clyde has had three friends die from heroin overdoses. Musser has had five friends die from heroin overdoses. Kyle Wyss, 31, of Fremont, said he could think of six friends who succumbed to overdoses and could probably name more if given more time. On average, Ortolani said he's responded to about one heroin overdose call a month since that first one. "It’s something I’ll never forget,” Ortolani said. Ortolani said he didn’t think the man had a pulse and was blue in the face. The officer said EMS responded shortly after the police arrived. The detective said he has shown up to overdose scenes where people still have needles in their arms, or tourniquets wrapped around their arms.Ĭhristian Ortolani was hired by the Fremont Police Department in September 2013.Ī month later, he responded to his first heroin overdose call.Īt the scene, Ortolani found a man with a spoon in his pocket.

"It's difficult to explain, but you can almost see their life drain from their bodies," Kiddey said. He talked about the need for community cooperation in combating drugs and the societal problems that come with them.Īfter the meeting, Kiddey said he personally investigated several heroin overdose deaths last fall. Kiddey passed around drugs, including heroin, he had seized to show the Blockwatch members what they looked like. He delivered a lengthy presentation on the city's illegal drug issues at a Fremont Blockwatch meeting in February, telling the crowd of 25 that heroin was Fremont's number one problem. Police officers in Fremont, Clyde and Woodville sometimes get to an overdose scene before EMS does.įremont Detective Jason Kiddey said the city saw a rise in heroin cases in the summer and fall of 2015. “It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen,” Musser said. “I thought for sure he was going to die.” Musser called an ambulance and got medical attention, police arrived, and his friend snapped back from death to life. So I discreetly shut the door,” Musser said. “I knew what was going on, but I didn’t want to believe it. Musser once walked into a bedroom to find a friend laying face down. Recovering addict Colton Musser, 23, of Clyde, witnessed multiple overdoses involving friends and fellow users when he used heroin over a three-year span. Some are immediately revived with the anti-overdose drug Narcan, and their emotions range from apologizing for being stupid to denying they took anything, Marcson said.Īddicts who are suddenly revived also can be combative, EMS officials and Fremont police officers said, which presents a whole new set of problems for first responders.

The brain is so high from the drug it forgets to breathe, he said. Near the end stages of a heroin overdose, the victim turns dark blue, Marcson said. Someone overdosing on heroin goes into respiratory depression, he said. Simply put, their breathing is not adequate to sustain life.
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That’s how Sandusky County EMS Captain John Marcson described it.
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It can take months for the coroner’s office to make a determination on cause of death.Īn overdose victim’s breathing slows by a breath, then two, and their skin cools to a purplish-blue tint. Anywhere that blood can go - face, nail beds, lips - turns blue. There were 5 overdose deaths in 2015, with 10 more overdoses pending coroner's findings, Brown said.
