An Alameda County Sheriff’s sergeant and detective are recovering after becoming ill during suspected exposure to airborne fentanyl during a recent investigative raid, authorities said Tuesday.
Narcan is an opioid antidote that help reverse the effects of an overdose. In this case a life threatening exposure.
— Alameda County Sheriff (@ACSOSheriffs) June 26, 2018
Tweets from the sheriff’s office account credit the quick administration of Narcan, “an opioid antidote that help reverse the effects of an overdose” after the two suffered exposure to airborne drugs Friday.
“Both are home and making a full recovery,” the sheriff’s office tweeted.
The officers suffered exposure while executing a search warrant on behalf of a county narcotics task force around 1:30 p.m. Friday at a Hayward motel, Alameda County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Ray Kelly said.
After entering a room, a detective who has been with the department for about six years inhaled microscopically fine particles of a drug possibly sent airborne by the entry and was immediately overcome, falling to the floor.
“He went down onto the ground unconscious and stopped breathing, his lips turned blue,” Kelly said. “He was dying right before their eyes.”
A sergeant who has served 18 years with the department and is trained like nearly all of the department’s officers in overdose exposure, recognized the detective’s symptoms and administered a vial of naloxone, or Narcan.
After the sergeant gave a second dose when the first didn’t appear to immediately work, the detective appeared to come around, Kelly said.
By then the sergeant began to complain of trouble breathing and a numb face before vomiting, but officers were able to keep him from passing out until paramedics’ arrival. The two were then taken to a hospital and treated for exposure before release later that day, Kelly said.
“Obviously, this was a very traumatic experience for both detectives. We were so happy they were alive and that this drug saved them,” Kelly said.
“We came really close to losing an officer that day. Luckily we had the foresight to realize that this crisis would land on our door, after seeing what has been happening on the East Coast and the Midwest.”
Kelly also credited the sheriff’s office’s narcotics-exposure training program instituted early last year, as well as ongoing trainings with other agencies.
After special precautions were put in place Friday, other task force officers made an arrest and recovered a large quantity of heroin from the motel room.
Contact George Kelly at 408-859-5180.