Another week, another cluster of overdoses.
This time it happened in Louisville, Kentucky, where Louisville Metro Emergency Services responded to 52 overdose calls between midnight Wednesday and 8 a.m. ET Friday, said agency spokesman Mitchell Burmeister.
That was a big jump over the 25 overdose calls received in the same 32-hour time frame last week.
A breakdown of overdose causes was not available, but Burmeister said most of those calls were heroin overdoses. Paramedics also dealt with overdoses of alcohol, prescription medications and other controlled substances.
Such overdose clusters pop up in different spots and authorities aren’t sure why.
Nationwide, the spike in opioid overdoses is blamed on heroin and fentanyl, a pain reliever often given to cancer patients. Death rates from synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, increased 72.2% from 2014 to 2015, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said…
