An Army football player was among those hospitalized in Florida after several West Point cadets overdosed on fentanyl-laced cocaine at an Airbnb party house, according to the US Military Academy.
An official told the Associated Press that another football player was also at the house but was not hospitalized. None of the names were released, and the official could not give the hospitalized player’s condition.
Fort Lauderdale Fire-Rescue Battalion Chief Steve Gollan also told the AP that of the six victims, two were in critical condition on ventilators, two were in stable condition, one was in good condition and one victim was released.
Also on Friday, authorities made an arrest in the overdoses.
Wilton Manors Police confirmed the arrest but did not identify the suspect or provide additional details, according to WSVN.
West Point officials said they were investigating the incident Thursday, and did not identify the students.
The six New York cadets — all men in their early 20s — had been partying at a house north of Fort Lauderdale on their spring break, neighbors said.
“We’ve been hearing over the last couple of days, loud music, gatherings,” Dana Fumosa, who lives next door to the Airbnb, told the outlet. “It was guys and girls over there. They seemed to be having a good time barbecuing, and they were in the pool.”
Four of the students reportedly immediately overdosed after ingesting the tainted coke, and friends who administered CPR were also exposed to fentanyl, a opioid which is far more potent than heroin and deadly in trace amounts.
“I saw four people getting pulled out on stretchers, their arms were just flopping. They were totally unconscious,” neighbor Cub Larkin told the station.
The Wilton Manors Police Department posted a CDC video about the dangers of fentanyl on its Facebook site Thursday, urging drug users to test their narcotics for the extremely dangerous substance.
Ingesting just 0.002 grams of the drug results in “certain death,” according to the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics.
Fentanyl was a factor in approximately 75,000 US drug overdoses during a 12-month period ending last April — a 29 percent spike over the prior 12 month, the CDC said.
The opioid is sometime inadvertently added to cocaine by cartels that are packaging both narcotics in the same place, but some traffickers intentionally add it to supplies to make their product more addictive and powerful, officials say.
Dealers peddling the synthetic drug have been increasingly arrested in connection with their customer’s deaths.
With Post wires