CARLISLE, Pa. -- A dangerous drug making its way across Pennsylvania, has some emergency medical services workers on alert.
Crews prepared to handle a Carfentanil overdose may help save the lives of patients and protect EMS workers from danger.
Cumberland Goodwill EMS crews are on the lookout for the drug, which is 10,000 times more powerful than morphine.
Proper training on how to handle patients who may have overdosed on the drug could make the difference between life and death.
Cumberland Goodwill EMS Assistant Chief Nathan Harig said "if they're unconscious, we work down a protocol, that just tries everything. We check them for strokes, we try Naloxone, we check their sugars to see if they're a diabetic."
EMS workers are prepared for an emergency situation, a patient who overdoses on a drug not meant for the human body.
"Carfentanil is an animal tranquilizer, so it's not something given to humans," Harig said.
Cumberland Goodwill EMS are training to save patients as the drug makes its way across the state.
"They've seen it in the Pittsburgh area, they've had overdoses with it. They've seen it in the Philadelphia area, along with W18. So really, when you connect the dots between those two regions, and just follow that turnpike, we're dead center and we're sure that it will move into this area," Harig said.
Cumberland-Perry Drug and Alcohol Commission executive director Jack Carroll said "the appearance of Carfentanil, just makes an already terrible situation even worse."
It may complicate saving the lives of people who overdosed on the heroin-laced drug.
"It comes out to 10,00 times more powerful than morphine, if they're mixing it with that. Our Naloxone is just not able to keep up with that," Harig said.
"That also means that the addiction, and the grip that the drug, the opiate has, on a person's mind, is that much stronger" Carroll said.
"It makes our job of effectively intervening, getting them into treatment, and treating them that much more difficult," Carroll added.
The opioid treatment drug Naloxone is no match for the powerful narcotic.
"We've encountered situations where we've used this four times. We've had to call extra trucks out. We've put extra on our trucks, now we're up to three doses, we used to be at two," Harig said.
If Naloxone can't bring someone out of unconsciousness, EMS workers may have to help patients, before Carfentanil stops them from breathing.
"Basically, the brain just stops breathing. So really, our management of any type of opiod overdose, where naloxone is not going to work is to provide artificial ventilation for them," Harig said.
"Just enough for the chest rise, to make sure they're breathing every six seconds," Harig added.
The consequences of an overdose may be deadly.
"In 2015, it was 41 overdose deaths, that was the highest ever recorded in Cumberland County. As of about 10 days ago, we were already at 44 for 2016," Carroll said.
"It's reached every strata of American life, rich, poor, young, old, we're seeing every type of overdose patient, Carlisle is just one of those areas that's caught up in something that's really nationwide," Harig said.
EMS workers aren't just concerned about saving the lives of their patients, but protecting themselves from the drug.
"Just to make sure that we're not coming in contact with the drug, because as little as one micro-gram, which is a small amount, can cause symptoms to trigger in a human," Harig said.
There haven't been any cases reported in Cumberland County as of yet, but the Harig wanted to take a proactive approach as not knowing how to respond to a Carfentanil overdose could be harmful to patients and crews.