SAN FRANCISCO — Four California Highway Patrol officers and a Golden Gate Bridge patrol officer were hospitalized for possible fentanyl exposure Sunday after responding to a vehicle blocking Golden Gate Bridge lanes, authorities said.
Around 11:45 a.m., dispatchers received a call reporting an apparently intoxicated driver heading toward northbound bridge traffic, followed by a second call reporting the vehicle collided with a movable median barrier and blocking at least one lane with an unconscious driver inside, CHP Marin spokesperson Ofc. Andrew Barclay said Sunday afternoon.
When officers arrived at the scene and found the vehicle, one entered it to check on the driver and put the vehicle in park to prepare for tow removal. San Francisco Fire Department firefighters also responded to tend to the driver.
Moments after a tow truck moved it from the bridge to the Alexander Avenue off-ramp, the officer who had entered the vehicle became violently ill and nearly became unconscious. Shortly after, the tow truck driver and a second CHP officer began displaying symptoms of possible fentanyl exposure, Barclay said.
As other officers and paramedics arrived at the scene, they began using department-deployed Narcan doses, giving attention first to the primary officer, who appeared to have received the largest fentanyl exposure.
By the time the situation was under control, at least two other CHP officers and one Golden Gate Bridge patrol officer had also been exposed, for a total of seven people including the original driver. All officers were taken to medical facilities, while the tow-truck drivers were treated at the scene and cleared, the CHP said. All were awake and responsive Sunday afternoon.
The Narcan doses, provided to many police and paramedics for emergency revival of people exposed to fentanyl, “appear to be responsible for those officers still being with us,” Barclay said.
Investigators declared the off-ramp and vehicle a hazardous-materials scene Sunday afternoon with the Marin County Sheriff’s Office hazmat team on scene, and the off-ramp was expected to remain closed to traffic.
RETRACTED: my first assessment was that "a bunch of cops find a baggie of "cocaine," they pass around bumps, it turns out to be fentanyl, they play up the symptoms for their medical pension while shutting a busy off-ramp to the public for an entire day with million dollars of drug panic panto. in the moral hierarchy of people who do drugs, there is nobody lower". i used that exact language. however, since that time, this article has come to my attention: https://harmreduction.org/blog/fentanyl-exposure/ i will note that while this article shows that my original interpretation of the events of 9/13 was erroneous, it also shows that the cops are even bigger babies than even i, one of their detractors, was initially willing to believe. i thought they had to at least have touched the fentanyl to be hurt by it.
Edited by swampman ()
fentanyl is quite dangerous before getting stepped on but i'm unclear how this could possibly be true, or how the tow truck driver and second cop in the open air could be meaningfully exposed unless there was an aum shinrikyo style aerosolizer setup. this is like that Marlowe (i think?) play where they paint a poisonous painting and anybody who looks at it gets poisoned. trying times indeed, i hope that these justice-work and justice-work-adjacents get all the medical leave and workers comp that they deserve (none).
swampman posted:"a bunch of cops find a baggie of "cocaine," they pass around bumps, it turns out to be fentanyl,
this would be cool as it would 100% kill them if it's anywhere near pure, no time for narcan
Edited by chickeon ()
i notice none of the firefighters are reported as suffering ill effects. so, something definitely feels off
Edited by Constantignoble ()
swampman posted:yea people wear masks and gloves while handling it, in a setting where they are working with large amounts of it to produce it or press fake xanax or whatever. the idea that you're going to get even mildly high off the aerosolized particulate from one trucker's glovebox stash is not plausible, to me. the only way i could feature the possibility would be if the cops were planting a bag of pure fentanyl in the truck and they like, accidenatlly ripped it open while try to scatter it around the floor or whatever. i mean they declared the entire offramp to be contaminated and sent in hazmat suit workers. sounds like an over reaction
passing out at the wheel after accidentally ripping open my compost bag size fent stash on the glovebox latch hook
https://harmreduction.org/blog/fentanyl-exposure/
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/opinion/opioid-fentanyl-hysteria-massachusetts.html
aerdil posted:it's not at all plausible or possible to experience the effects described by the cops:
https://harmreduction.org/blog/fentanyl-exposure/
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/opinion/opioid-fentanyl-hysteria-massachusetts.html
none of that is inconsistent with the mundane effects described by the cowardly pigs! 'violently ill and almost unconscious' is how a lot of opioid naive people react to even small doses of opioids, i don't see why they couldn't have legitimately exposed themselves before the hysterical and unnecessary theatrics of the response. by far the least incredible narrative i've seen come out of fentanyl hysteria, we got mf's here spreading lies about Indigenous cannabis being laced with it (fent is destroyed by the heat of smoked cannabis). Some DEA dick could have set this guy up or had him transporting pure fent to some unscrupulous dealers or he could have been doing so on his own. I appreciate the resistance to pharmacophobic nazi bullshit narratives though don't get me wrong.