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REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2012

DRUGS: Ambulances carry 2 overdoses a week in city

Continued from Page One as well. Campion Ambulance is now treating an average two people per week in Torrington for opiate overdoses, according to Fred Rosa, Campions director of operations in Torrington, and EMTs save most overdose victims lives by administering Narcan. The eight overdose deaths police have investigated since 2010 are the most tragic casualties of an epidemic in the city that shows no signs of abating. Its a problem that has drawn the attention of officials at the Hartford Dispensary, who are proposing a methadone treatment clinic on Kennedy Drive, and its one that Campion Ambulance EMTs have become well acquainted with in the field, Rosa said. Communities that thought they were immune to this because of wealth, thats not the case anymore, Rosa said. It does cross socioeconomic lines and its not limited to the inner cities. ADMINISTRATION OF NARCAN, which is given only in cases of opiate overdose, is the most telling sign of the rise of overdoses. In data provided by Campion taken from Cheshire, Waterbury and Torrington, Narcan administration rose from 169 patients in 2008 to 198 patients in 2011, a 21 percent increase. As of August 2012, Campion had administered Narcan to 153 patients, a number that puts the company on track to treat 228 opiate overdoses in the three towns this year. On Friday alone, Campion Ambulance had dispatched one ambulance to a possible heroin overdose in the afternoon and Litchfield County Dispatch sent an ambulance to Bantam for a suspected heroin overdose in the evening. Its definitely on the rise, said William T. Campion, the president of the ambulance company. In many cases, he said the overdose occurs when someone who has gone through detoxification relapses. They develop a bit of a tolerance and they increase the dose and then later, they dry out in rehab, Campion said. But then if they relapse they go back to the dose they were using before, and instead of the nice high they were used to, they get into trouble. The respiratory system is affected, they stop breathing and its a downward spiral from there. THERE IS CONCERN AMONG

CATS: Cameras key to cougar project

Continued from Page One have the cameras and scent stations up by Christmas. They are soliciting donations at indiegogo.com/ctmountainlion. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the eastern mountain lion has been extinct for decades, but more than 200 state residents have claimed to have seen the animal in the past decade. People often report they have seen mountain lions also known as cougars, pumas and panthers when they have in fact spotted other animals, such as bobcats or coyotes, according to the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. A mountain lion was seen in Greenwich and killed on the Wilbur Cross Parkway in Milford last year, inflaming a controversy over whether the animals exist here, but the DEEP said DNA tests showed it had come from South Dakota. There definitely was an increase in reports following news of the Greenwich-Milford mountain lion, said DEEP spokesman Dennis Schain. There was a real spike. Cougars of the Valleys website is filled with posts from people who say they have seen mountain lions, including recent reports from Roxbury and Torrington. When callers report sightings to the DEEP, the agency investigates if there is proof to be had, such as a photograph, a paw print or droppings, Schain said. We cant respond to all of them, Schain said. We would just be consumed with that, but we do try to respond when there seems to be some significant evidence. Based on the number of reported sightings, Ottmann believes as many as 50 mountain lions are prowling the wilderness in Connecticut. He

ADVOCATING FOR ACCESS

In March, Brown University and Yale School of Public Health professor Traci Green testified before the state legislature on a bill that would broaden access to drugs that reverse the effects of heroin or prescription pain medication overdoses. Green told the Public Health Committee that the problem of opiate addiction deserves attention in because: >> Drug poisoning overdose is the leading cause of accidental death among adults in Connecticut. >> Connecticut is one of 20 states in which mortality from overdose is now more prevalent than deaths from motor vehicle crashes. >> Drug-related deaths claimed the lives of one Connecticut resident each day in 2009, with the most common drugs involved in the deaths being opioids like heroin and oxycodone. >> 148 of the 169 Connecticut towns experienced at least one opioid-related overdose death during the period of 1997 to 2007, with many of the small town and suburban areas seeing increases in prescription opioid-involved overdose deaths.

This photo released by the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection shows an eastern mountain lion that was struck by a car and killed on the Wilbur Cross Parkway in Greenwich in June 2011.

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experts that overdoses are occurring more frequently in whats being termed treatment deserts places where access to treatment such as methadone programs is limited by distance, lack of transportation or even doctors with addiction treatment training, said Amy Hanoian-Fontana, the community education specialist at the Connecticut Poison Control. The deaths are happening in the places where there is no treatment option, whether its a methadone clinic or a place without access to a doctor authorized to prescribe Suboxone, another medicine for opiate addiction, Hanoian-Fontana said. Weve already seen that creating a treatment desert does not help. In fact, it leads to death. Traci Green, a Brown University and Yale School of Public Health professor, has emerged as an advocate to make Narcan more accessible, including to friends and family of opiate abusers. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed a bill in June expanding Narcan access, and the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services is scheduled to report on how well the new law is working in January. Narcan was not used in any of the eight fatal overdoses investigated by police between 2010 and 2012. Bryan Crossman, 38, received Narcan at the hospital when a friend took him there after an overdose at age 22. The Winsted native was at a small party when friends realized Crossman had overdosed, all but one fled, worried they would be arrested on drug

charges. Ironically, the friend who saved me was somebody who died of an overdose in September 2011, Crossman said. A heroin addict from his teens until age 28, Crossman has been on methadone for 12 years and has lost three friends to overdoses. Finding access to treatment is difficult, Crossman said, and he believes a methadone treatment clinic in Northwest Connecticut would save lives. The clinics are so important because you can get in and get a stable dose of something. If you want to stay in, you can stay clean, Crossman said. Theres a lot of people that dont have transportation. I have a car and can get back and forth, but a lot of people dont have that option so its harder for them to make it to groups and follow the rules. Its easier to stay on the street doing their thing than go to treatment. The proposal Hartford Dispensary has brought before Planning and Zoning to open their 10th methadone treatment clinic in the state has been met with controversy. Diane Whitney, an attorney for Hartford Dispensary, said Friday that even though the clinic appears to meet zoning regulations and evidence presented shows it meets new rules the commission introduced in April on safety and traffic, its not clear the proposal will win approval. I dont understand the huge resistance, Whitney said on Friday. I think theyre in trouble if they turn us down because they have no evidence on their side and we have quite a lot.

is one of many who do not buy the DEEPs explanation of the cougar killed last year. If anybody thinks otherwise, that this thing travels 1,800 miles without setting up their own territory, theyre crazy, Ottmann said. Residents in some other northeastern states, including Rhode Island and New Hampshire, have also claimed to have seen mountain lions. Officials usually say they were mistaken or that the animal escaped from captivity. Ottmann, who is heading the fundraising drive with Rhode Island cougar expert Bill Betty, said he thinks their project will expand into neighboring states. He said people should be aware of mountain lions in Connecticut for their own safety. I dont want somebody out there to get mauled or killed, he said. The Eastern Puma Research Network, based in West Virginia, bought about

300 high-definition trail cameras for the mid-Atlantic region, where cougars are also declared extinct, said Director John A. Lutz. Panthers that dwell in Florida belong to a different subspecies. Lutzs cameras do not record video, but they shoot photos every time something walks by them. Lutz said they have picked up a few pictures that his group says are mountain lions, but officials disagree. The groups cameras are spaced too thinly in five different states and cannot catch animals walking behind them, Lutz said. A cougar is not called the ghost of the forest for nothing, Lutz said. Lutz said about 100 of his groups cameras have been stolen. The camcorders in Connecticut will be clustered together to catch multiple angles in undisclosed locations on private property, Ottmann said. Although the DEEPs position on mountain lions has not changed, Schain said Ottmanns project is worthwhile. We continue to maintain theres no native population of mountain lions, Schain said. We would welcome this project. It would provide additional information and evidence one way or the other. Visit rep-am.com to comment on this story.

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FIRE: Crews save tenants

Continued from Page One The department has only eight firefighters on duty every shift, and all eight were at the apartment within minutes of the alarm. Trzaski called for mutual aid from Waterbury, which brought 10 firefighters with a police escort through the borough. Beacon Falls volunteers stood by at headquarters. Dazed residents stood outside on the street, some wrapped in bathrobes, as firefighters put out the flames and cleaned up. Tenant Dave Mancini said he heard the fire alarm, then sirens. He walked outside and saw smoke pouring from two windows. It looked like it was coming out of the second floor, but they said it was on the first floor, said Mancini, a two-year resident of the building. Another tenant, Josh Cassin, who has lived in the building for only two weeks, saw the smoke after the fire engines pulled up. He grabbed a bottle of water, his cellphone and keys, and raced out of the building, he said. They did a really good job, he said of firefighters. They were very coordinated right from the start. Another tenant, who declined to give her name, said she was alerted by a neighbors cat, who was wailing as smoke crawled upstairs. The cat was rescued. There were at least two other cats in the building, including Cassins, and both were believed to be OK. Cassin said he saw his cat through a window from the street. According to assessment records, the building is owned by Wayne P. Buckmiller, and is assessed at $1.04 million. It was built in 1860.

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