A wave of heroin overdoses in just a 12-hour period Saturday in or near Anoka County left two people dead and four others taken to hospitals, one of them in critical condition.
Citing an "alarming number of overdose cases to happen so close together" in time and place, the Anoka County Sheriff's Office said in a statement that investigators are speculating that the overdoses could potentially be tied to the same single source of the drug.
Five of the six people who overdosed Saturday — four men and one woman — are in their mid-20s, authorities said. The sixth was a 30-year-old man. Two are from Fridley, while the others are from Anoka, Andover and Ham Lake. One is from Isanti but was taken to a hospital in Coon Rapids, according to the Sheriff's Office. Their identities were not released.
Meanwhile, across the metro, officials in Bloomington are assessing whether a few overdoses that occurred at the Mall of America on Friday night could be related.
Authorities responded to three people at the mall who became unconscious after using a combination of drugs together, including heroin, said Police Deputy Chief Mike Hartley. The combination of drugs was likely the cause of the overdoses, but Hartley said investigators intend to specifically examine the role that heroin played in the emergencies.
"This is out of the norm, and when that occurs it's obviously troubling to us," Hartley said.
Heroin deaths spiked dramatically across the country in the last decade, part of a dangerous epidemic of prescription and illicit opioid use. The Northeast and parts of the Ohio Valley have been particularly hard hit, but officials in Minnesota have been seeing big jumps in opioid abuse too.
Medical examiners in Anoka, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott, Sherburne, Wright and St. Louis counties reported at least 79 heroin overdose deaths to the DEA last year, compared to 16 in 2010.
