New protocol for Bibb County Sheriff’s Office after June opioid overdoses

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – The Bibb County Sheriff’s Office says this year, they have seen the most overdoses in Bibb County in about a decade. Some of those include the fake Percocet scare in June.

In a span of 48-hours, on June 6th, 4 people died from taking a drug disguised as Percocet.

The increase of overdoses in Bibb County, made the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office change a couple protocols.

“We really learned from that experience,” said Lt. Michael Kenirey, with the BSO Narcotics Unit. “With those specific cases, we had about a week of those cases.”

Two synthetic opioids were later found in those pills. It was something Navicent Health nor the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office had seen before.

“We’re doing a little bit more education, even in the public than were doing before, with opiates and opioids,” said Lt. Kenirey.

“Physicians here are very good at taking care of the overdoses, but from a hospital standpoint, we’re kind of addressing the opioid epidemic,” said Dr. John Wood, Medical Director at Navicent Health.

Navicent Health still gets a handful, of overdoses, but nothing like June’s numbers.

“We’re kind of at the baseline of overdoses that we see,” said Dr. Wood.

The Bibb County Sheriff’s Office had its deputies take Narcan Training following the June scare, as well as an adjustment to protocol.

“Our drug investigators are on call with violent crimes detectives and they go out there to a suspected overdose to see if there is any intelligence they can gather that would find out where the drug came from,” said Lt. Kenirey.

Both the sheriff’s office and hospital will keep doing its job, but they want to remind you to be aware.

“If you find a pill or somebody sells you a pill, even if its your friend’s pill, don’t take it,” said Dr. Wood. “It wasn’t. It wasn’t prescribed to you. There’s no telling what could happen.”

Lt. Kenirey says that thanks to people spreading the word out about the fake Percocet, they have not seen any cases with those specific ingredients resurface .  The sheriff’s office is still looking for the person or people responsible for making that bad batch. If you have any information, call the sheriff’s office at 478-751-7500 or Macon Regional Crimestoppers at 1-877-68CRIME.

The coroner’s office says there were 17 deaths this year related to drug overdoses.