In mere seconds, the Harrisburg patrol officer knew something was very, very wrong.
His chest was tightening. He was having trouble breathing. And he was all alone as a routine traffic stop suddenly turned into a possible opioid trafficking case when the suspects fled.
All the officer could do was sit on the curb, take off his bullet-proof vest for more comfort and wait for his fellow officers to reach him.
The life-threatening incident occurred Friday evening near North 17th Street in the city. The officer’s identity was not made public by Harrisburg police.
As the officer pursued the fleeing suspect vehicle, the suspect or suspects inside tossed cash and a package out the window, Harrisburg Police Commissioner Thomas Carter said this morning.
The officer stopped his pursuit to gather the would-be evidence.
But soon after coming into contact with the package, which police say contained an unknown amount of the lethal synthetic opioid fentanyl, he was stricken with the classic overdose symptoms, Carter said.
His respiratory system was shutting down.
Carter said the first officer to arrive on the scene immediately administered a dose of the opioid antidote Narcan to the stricken cop.
Arriving EMTs gave the officer a second dose, which finally began to ease the overdose symptoms.
Carter said the officer was hospitalized and given oxygen and IVs, among other emergency treatment.
It took several hours until all of his vital signs were back to near-normal. Thankfully, he was released later that night and should be okay, Carter said.
As for the crime scene, Carter said it required a Hazmat response to gather the drug package, the cash and even the officer’s body armor and other clothing and equipment -- all of which could have been tainted.
The suspect vehicle was later found abandoned, and once again Hazmat had to process the vehicle, Carter said.
No one else was injured.
The suspect or suspects remain at large, and Carter did not have any immediate descriptions for public release.
Cater did say the officer did the right thing in trying to take the potentially deadly drugs off of the residential street where children could have come in contact with the package. The incident occurred around 7:30 p.m. when residents were outside.
“The officer was acting in the best interest of the public,” Carter said. “That is a residential area. There are a lot of kids out there. If someone else picked it up, it could have been a different story.”
Carter said this was the first case of a Harrisburg officer being injured by fentanyl, which has endangered countless first-responders across the country.
Carter described the opioid crisis as a problem not only in the city, but all of the region, the state and across the nation.
Carter added the department would review its protocol for handling these situations in the future, but no immediate procedure changes have been made in wake of the nearly-deadly episode.
Carter didn’t have the precise details of the exact nature of the officer’s exposure to the fentanyl in order to produce the accidental overdose symptoms. He said a police spokesman was still gathering more information and would update the media later.
Recent medical studies have indicated merely touching fentanyl is typically not enough exposure to produce a life-threatening overdose.