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Florida Matters: Heroin In Manatee County

Leon County Judge John Cooper on June 30, 2022, in a screen grab from The Florida Channel.
WMFE
/
The Florida Channel
Leon County Judge John Cooper on June 30, 2022, in a screen grab from The Florida Channel.

Heroin overdoses are rising most everywhere, but perhaps nowhere more dramatically than in Manatee County.

That was the topic at a recent meeting of the Manatee Tiger Bay Club in Bradenton. This week on Florida Matters (Tuesday, Sept. 15 at 6:30 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 20 at 7:30 a.m.), we’ll bring you highlights of that discussion.  

According to StephenKrivjanik, the chief of Emergency Medical Services in Manatee County:

·         November 2014 is when they started to see a spike, with a peak in June and July of 2015

·         A 1,554 percent increase in overdoses when comparing July 2014 to July 2015

·         In July 2015, 216 911 calls for overdose patients

·         1,008 doses of Narcan administered  through Aug. 31 at a cost of $86,137

·         35 repeat overdoses in the month of July alone

·         EMS have responded to 21 calls where the person was dead on arrival

Florida Matters: Heroin In Manatee County

Copyright 2015 WUSF Public Media - WUSF 89.7

Lottie Watts covers health and health policy for Health News Florida, now a part of WUSF Public Media. She also produces Florida Matters, WUSF's weekly public affairs show.
Lottie Watts
Lottie Watts is our Florida Mattersproducer, and she also covers health and health policy for Health News Florida.
Carson Cooper has become a favorite of WUSF listeners as the host of "Morning Edition" on WUSF 89.7 since he took the job in 2000. Carson has worked in Tampa Bay radio for three decades.