Heroin Overdoses Spike In Lake County
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Northwest Indiana's heroin epidemic is getting worse, according to officials.
Six people have died in the past week in Lake County from heroin overdoses.
"I mean, we know there is a heroin epidemic in Lake County," said Lake County's chief deputy coroner, Scott Sefton. "There's no two ways about that."
Sefton said things have gone from bad to worse, WBBM's Steve Miller reports.
"This has been very unusual," Sefton said. "That this many overdose deaths have come in just a week's time. Normally they're spread out, maybe two deaths from overdose (in a) week."
But Sefton said there were nine overdose deaths in the past eight days and six were heroin-related.
He said if Narcan, the antidote to opioids, was not available then, the coroner's office would be seeing twice the number of overdose deaths it's seeing now.
Sefton said Lake County had 42 heroin-related deaths in all of last year.
"We will surpass that 42, unfortunately, with no problem whatsoever this year," Defton said.