Customers evacuated a local McDonald’s in North Carolina Tuesday after a man overdosed on heroin laced with the deadly painkiller fentanyl in the bathroom.
A customer found a man unconscious on the bathroom floor with powder next to him at roughly 3 p.m. Tuesday afternoon at a McDonald’s in Charlotte. Police evacuated the McDonald’s because of the fatal risks drug powder poses due to the influx of synthetic opioids like fentanyl and carfentanil, an elephant tranquilizer, reports FOX 46.
Less than half a teaspoon of pure fentanyl is enough to kill 10 people. Dispatchers sent a Charlotte Fire Department Hazmat unit to the scene, which collected the drugs from the bathroom floor. Authorities took the unconscious man, identified as 37-year-old Kristopher Arthur Anderson, to a local hospital where he was treated and later released. He is charged with trafficking heroin.
Hazmat crews collected 10 grams of heroin from the McDonald’s bathroom, which later tested positive for fentanyl. The building is temporarily closed off to the public until a team completes a decontamination.
The DEA issued new guidance to police departments across the country June 6 on how to handle heroin due to the increasing prevalence of fentanyl.
The DEA is warning police and first responders to avoid field testing drugs and to wear equipment like gloves and masks, though officials note even protective gear cannot always keep officers safe. A police officer involved in an Ohio roadside heroin bust May 12 overdosed after he got some fentanyl powder on his uniform, despite using gloves and a mask while searching the suspect’s car.
Heroin deaths are sharply climbing in communities across North Carolina, which have experienced a nearly 900 percent increase in fatal heroin overdoses since 2010. Authorities in the state say heroin use is more prevalent than people may realize, and it’s rooted in dependence on opiate-based painkillers.
Opioid-related overdoses claimed more than 33,000 lives in 2015 and drug deaths totaled 52,404, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The New York Times recently culled through data from state health departments and county medical examiners and coroners, predicting there were between 59,000 and 65,000 drug deaths in 2016.
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