ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Authorities said Friday that fentanyl and methamphetamine were found at a home where first responders answering a call about suspected overdoses in a rural New Mexico county became sick.
Three people who were found inside the house died Wednesday. A fourth person who was in the house and one of the emergency responders who became sick were still being treated at a hospital Friday.
A doctor who saw the responders exhibiting symptoms including nausea and dizziness said their symptoms most closely resembled fentanyl exposure. However, the investigation into how the exposure happened and what caused it was ongoing.
University of New Mexico Hospital Chief Medical Officer Steve McLaughlin said during a news conference in Albuquerque that authorities were working “under the assumption” that fentanyl was to blame. He said the responders’ symptoms ranged from mild to slightly more severe.
“It’s probably not absorbed through your skin, but it would be absorbed through your eyes, nose, mucous membranes, or if you inhale it,” McLaughlin told The Associated Press.
Meth is notoriously toxic when exposed to it, and fentanyl less so. Authorities noted during Friday’s news conference that the responders who became ill had directly treated the people found inside the house east of Albuquerque, in the rural town of Mountainair.
More than a dozen first responders were quarantined and decontaminated after responding to the scene.
Of the two people still hospitalized Friday, one was a person who was found unresponsive in the home where three died. Authorities went to the home Wednesday morning after being called about a suspected drug overdose. Authorities said they were called to the home by a co-worker of one of the people inside after they failed to show up to work.
New Mexico State Police Chief Matt Broom said investigators did not immediately find evidence of drug manufacturing in the house.
State police said early on that there was no threat to the public and that investigators did not believe the mysterious substance was airborne.
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Brown reported from Billings, Montana.
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