Student dies on campus after heroin overdose, 2 hospitalized
One Oswego State student is dead and two are being hospitalized after suspected heroin overdoses.
The student who died was found on campus, while the two who were hospitalized were off campus. The announcement came a day after the annual Bridge Street Run festivities unfolded.
Early this morning, Oswego State issued an alert through the SUNY Alert system which stated “Danger: Oswego heroin may be lethal. One person is dead; two are hospitalized. Please beware! Please call police with any information.” The college urges students with information to contact University Police with information at (315) 312-5555. Oswego Police can be contacted at (315) 343-1212.
Danger: Oswego heroin may be lethal. One person dead; two hospitalized. Please beware! Please call police with any information 315-312-5555.
— sunyoswego (@sunyoswego) May 10, 2014
No information is known, at this time, to relate the incidents, but an investigation is underway by UP and OPD.
This comes just two weeks after Sean DeMerchant Jr., 22, was found in his off campus home dead. A Facebook page set up to remember DeMerchant says that he lost “his courageous battle with addiction.”
In a release on the Oswego.edu website, it was announced that on May 12 a SUNY Personal Safety Conference is to be held in East Syracuse. The agenda for that conference is dominated by discussions on opioid abuse, which includes heroin. While heroin abuse is not an Oswego-specific issue, it is one the university was taking steps to prepare for.
“By the grace of God, we haven’t run into anything (heroin use) on campus at all,” Chief of University Police John Rossi said in the same release. “But this transcends all levels of society, and it’s a statewide issue.”
In 2010, the Center for Disease Control reported that 75 percent of the 22,134 deaths related to prescription drug overdoses involved opioid pain relievers.
On May 7, New York State lawmakers passed a bill to expand the supply of an antidote for victims of heroin overdose. Naloxone will be given to rehab centers first and later will be given to family members of addicts. The state Assembly and Senate passed the bill uncontested. State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced a $5 million funding to give Narcan kits to police agencies across New York.
As this story develops more will be posted here.
4 COMMENTS
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why wasn’t more done after Sean’s death? There was nothing on campus done to warn students of possible dangers. It was as if the college was trying to hide this to prevent future students from thinking twice about coming to oswego. that seems to be a bigger concern than lives on this campus. now two of our classmates are gone.
Benefit of the doubt would be helpful here: Maybe it wasn’t clear what the first student died from when he was discovered. He he was indeed a drug addict, an overdose is a perfectly reasonable assumption.
Furthermore, the school’s neglect to announce the cause of death of the first student — if I recall, the campus wide email said nothing of the cause, but the article here does — could have been out of respect, rather than a fear of the school’s reputation. It’s no secret that students pretty much everywhere do drugs, but it might be disrespectful to both the deceased and the family of the deceased to publicly announce the student was an addict.
David, do you really need the school to issue you a warning that shooting black tar heroin is dangerous? I suspect that you already know it’s a bad idea.
There are rumours going around that the batch of heroin from which the three from Friday Night consumed may have been laced with something. It should, of course, be obvious that taking any heroin is a particularly bad idea, but there’s the possibility of a not exactly inconsequential difference here.