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Police were summoned via a 911 call to a Van Eyck Court apartment at 2:12 a.m., Police Chief James O’Connor told CLIFFVIEW PILOT this moring.
A family member told Sgt. Donna Niland and Officers Paul Haggerty, Nicholas Abruscato and Robert Fernandez that loved ones found the victim unresponsive in a bedroom and brought him into the kitchen, where they found a fentanyl patch in his mouth that they immediately removed.
“He had blueish-gray skin tone and wasn’t breathing,” O’Connor said.
The officers immediately began CPR, then administered two doses of Narcan, he said.
The man regained consciousness while being taken to Clara Maass Medical Center in Belleville. A MONOC ambulance also responded.
Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opiate — similar to but more potent than morphine — that is used to treat cancer patients and others with severe pain. Addicts sometimes mix it with heroin or cocaine to boost their potency.
Victims have died chewing the patches, which are designed to slowly dispense the drug through the skin. Chewing them releases a highly toxic dose at once.
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