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Sobering Numbers Out Of Delco Regarding Drug Epidemic

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Another sign of the opioid epidemic that is sweeping the country.

In Delaware County, the number of lives saved with an over-dose antidote more-than-doubled from 2015 to 2016. But the number of overdose deaths still climbed over that same period.

Delaware County district attorney Jack Whelan says in 2015, municipal police officers in Delaware county saved 151 lives using Narcan or Naloxone. And he says in 2016, that number more than doubled.

"We're not even counting the State Police, but the officers in the municipal police departments across Delaware County had 350 saves."

Despite the drastic increase in lives saved, he says, "our fatalities of drug overdose in regard to heroin and fentanyl have increased in 2016."

Whelan says the county's heroin task force continues to work to fight the epidemic. As for anyone who questions why police use Narcan to save someone from an overdose.

"We quite frankly find it offensive that anyone could even consider letting someone die."

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