Opioid overdoses spike in Central, Southern Delaware

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Areas in Delaware are seeing a spike in opioid overdoses just weeks after state officials expressed optimism that overdoses were trending down.

As of May 5, there have been 96 suspected overdoses in Sussex County and 55 in Kent County this year, according to Delaware State Police and health officials. according to Delaware State Police and health officials. There have been six fatalities presumed to be caused by opioid overdoses. The majority of overdoses in Sussex occurred in the area of Georgetown, Millsboro and Milford.

The Delaware National Guard, enlisted by the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services to test packages causing the suspected overdoses, found a mixture of drugs, including synthetic opioid fentanyl, animal tranquilizer xylazine and bromazolam, a benzodiazepine that acts like a sedative.

Jill Fredel, spokesperson for atTAcK Addiction, a nonprofit that teaches young people about addiction, said, “It’s kind of like a Frankenstein concoction.”

“Hopefully this has gotten people worried that they don’t want to stumble across this, don’t want to use it,” she said. “We’re hoping that they will connect with atTAcK Addiction, or the Delaware helpline, or go to HelpIsHereDE.com and get the connection to treatment that they really do need.”

Joanna Champney, director of the Delaware Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health, said the addition of the benzodiazepine to the drug cocktail is causing people to have difficulty breathing, convulsions and hallucinations.

“We have been seeing these elevated symptoms, resulting in people needing to be intubated,” she said. “Sometimes being unconscious for several days.”