This week, the Tavares Police Department in Florida released footage of an officer allegedly overdosing on fentanyl, an opioid that is around 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine.
According to the department, Courtney Bannick was found “slipping in and out of consciousness and needing medical assistance,” after locating narcotics and paraphernalia at a traffic stop around midnight Tuesday.
“The videos we are sharing today are not easy to watch, however, we feel it is important to share them with you to highlight how dangerous Fentanyl and Opiates are,” said the Tavares Police Department in a Facebook post.
Shortly after the alleged fentanyl exposure, police said Bannick was heard breathless and choking over her radio and other officers came to help. Bannick became “unresponsive and lifeless several times” as she waited for Emergency Medical Services and the department said other officers at the scene treated her with three doses of NARCAN. This is a brand-name version of Naloxone, an opioid antagonist medication used to reverse an opioid overdose.
Although Bannick was wearing gloves when she conducted the traffic stop, police said that “high winds” at the scene caused her to overdose.
“As soon as I started talking, I was light-headed a little bit and started almost choking,” she said, according to Click Orlando. “I couldn’t breathe. I wasn’t getting enough air and I remember kind of wheezing, gasping.”
According to a report published last year in the BMC Health & Justice journal, “misinformation about overdose risk from accidentally inhaling or touching fentanyl is widespread among police in the United States.” The report explained that this misinformation may be tracked back to 2016, when the “U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration issued misinformation about fentanyl exposure,” which included warnings that the drug could be absorbed through the skin or accidentally inhalaed.
In 2017, the American College of Medical Toxicology and American Academy of Clinical Toxicology issued a statement dispelling this misinformation.
“Fentanyl and its analogs are potent opioid receptor agonists, but the risk of clinically significant exposure to emergency responders is extremely low,” it said. “This may aggravate already elevated burdens of officer stress and burnout, while chilling lifesaving overdose response.”
Furthermore, research included in the statement said that “at the highest airborne concentration encountered by workers, an unprotected individual would require nearly 200 min of exposure to reach a dose of 100 mcg of fentanyl.”
This research did note that the drug can be dangerous and that “it is highly suspected that a weaponized aerosolized containing carfentanil and remifentanil [synthetic opioids similar to fentanyl] were used to subdue hostage-takers of a Moscow theater in 2002.” According to the Harm Reduction coalition, overdose deaths related to fentanyl have quadrupled in recent years.
The American College of Medical Toxicology and American Academy of Clinical Toxicology recommend that people who may come in contact with fentanyl train to notice the signs of an overdose. According to the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, signs can include: constricted pinpoint pupils; falling asleep or losing consciousness; slow, weak, or no breathing; choking or gurgling sounds; limp body; cold and/or clammy skin and discolored skin (especially in lips and nails).
In the case of a suspected overdose, treatment with NARCAN, as the officers did in Bannick’s case, is recommended.
“We would like to preface this by saying Officer Bannick is home and doing well,” the Tavares Police Department said this week. “She is expected to make a full recovery. She is eager to get back to work to continue her proactive policing.”
The individuals involved in Bannick’s traffic stop are facing felony charges, said police.
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