Connecticut police arrested at least three people in connection to an incident Aug. 15 during which more than 80 people overdosed at a park in New Haven, according to ABC News.
Officials with the New Haven fire department told ABC News emergency crews were overwhelmed with 911 calls about possible overdose victims just after after 8 a.m. Aug. 15. Twenty-five overdoses occurred within a three-hour time frame in the morning.
Seventy-one individuals suffering from apparent overdoses were transported to nearby hospitals, while five individuals refused medical attention and were not in need of hospital care. Two individuals exhibited life-threatening symptoms, police said.
A city official told ABC News the victims appeared to be suffering from "multiple of signs and symptoms ranging from vomiting, hallucinating, high blood pressure, shallow breathing, semi-conscious and unconscious states."
Police told the television station all the overdoses resulted from K2, or synthetic marijuana. The overdoses were previously concentrated in the park area, but began to spread to other areas of the city as the day went on, according to the report.
Initial samples of the drugs sent to the Drug Enforcement Administration tested as K2. However, emergency room physicians reported some of the victims had fentanyl in their system.
Some of the victims found in the park were "repeat offenders," police said, and returned to the park after they were treated at the hospital and overdosed for a second time the same day, ABC News reports.
A physician tending to victims in the park told the television station Aug. 16 some people who smoked or ingested the substance "tended to go down very fast" or "right in their tracks." Many victims had to be resuscitated after they went into respiratory depression or cardiac arrest.
Police arrested three individuals in connection with the incident, but did not say if all three individuals are directly responsible for the overdoses. The individuals' names were not released. One of the suspects reportedly did not charge victims for the drugs, and was "just handing [them] out." Another suspect charged victims for the substance, police said. One of the arrested individuals was previously charged for distributing drugs and violated their parole by continuing to do so.
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