FROM THE ATHENS BANNER-HERALD

The Burke County Sheriff’s Office will soon be trained to administer a drug used to prevent death in an opioid overdose, joining other Augusta-area agencies trying to combat this national epidemic.

Twenty-eight members of the sheriff’s office, along with others working within public safety and interested community members, began training last month to administer the nasal spray Narcan.

In 2016, the five states with the highest rates of death from drug overdoses were West Virginia (52.0 per 100,000), Ohio (39.1 per 100,000), New Hampshire (39.0 per 100,000), Pennsylvania (37.9 per 100,000) and Kentucky (33.5 per 100,000), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Deaths in Georgia reached 8.8 per 100,000 in 2016, and Chief Deputy Lewis Blanchard said the office’s main goal is to stay ahead of the national epidemic. The decision came after a recent incident in which Burke County deputies were the first to arrive at a call about a suspicious person, possibly suffering from an overdose.

“So far that has not been a major problem in our county, but we just want to be ahead of the curve as much as possible,” Blanchard said.