We all know Scioto County has an EMS shortage and an overdose crisis, and one SCDN reader wanted to know how many EMS calls are related to overdoses and how many of those involve individuals who have previously overdosed. Others want to know if there’s one particular area of the county that sees more overdoses.
Scioto County ranked number one in the state for overdose deaths in 2022.
Our county had 101 overdose deaths per 100,000 people, which is roughly 10 times the overdose death rate of Delaware County. The death rate is double that of counties where big population centers like Columbus, Cincinnati, and Cleveland are located.
While we can’t give you exact stats since EMS logs don’t list the reason for every call, we do know that the Portsmouth Fire Department offered an estimate to the city council last year summer that around 20-25% of calls were overdose-related. From years of reviewing the daily reports of both Scioto County and Portsmouth dispatch logs that seems about right.
Now, that doesn’t cover all drug-related calls. There are many calls for drug-induced mental health crises as well. But we have no way of telling from EMS logs which ones those are. As for repeat overdoses, there’s really no way to tell unless something happens on the same day, and the log notes they’ve responded back to the same address or person. HIPPA regulations would prevent EMS workers from sharing that information as well.
Where do we see the most overdose calls?
Generally, Portsmouth, followed by Wheelersburg and Lucasville, and then West Portsmouth. We don’t get logs from New Boston police and fire, though the calls seem to show that it’s based on population. The larger communities have the most calls, and it seems to be about 25% are related to reported overdoses. But every community throughout the county had overdose reports and, of course, there are many overdoses that are never reported where the individual is revived by Narcan.
