BALTIMORE — Lifesaving medications filled tables in Baltimore's Penn North neighborhood following a mass overdose incident that resulted in no fatalities.
Derrick George was one of the first people on the scene Thursday.
"When I first got out of here, it was really dramatic and it was, it really touched my heart," George said.
Watch as the community rallies together following the mass overdose incident
As a peer navigator, George is used to seeing overdoses in the area, but this incident was different.
"I see this every day, but I didn't see it to this magnitude yesterday. It was very overwhelming and it was like depressing. I never seen this the first time I ever seen something like this in my life," George said.
Mayor Brandon Scott expressed gratitude that there were no deaths from the incident.
"It will continue to be a all hands on deck approach as we continue to deal with this epidemic. The police department continues to investigate the scene and the surrounding neighborhoods focusing on the source of the drugs themselves," Scott said.
Community outreach groups were on site distributing Narcan and other items for safer drug use, while also connecting people to services to help them get off drugs. This type of outreach happens daily in the Penn North area, but not usually at this scale.
"The community's been real receptive. We've given out probably about 9-10 cases of Narcan since yesterday morning. We were out here last night until 11 p.m. We plan to be out here again tonight until 11 p.m.," said Jen Spence from Peer Community Project.
George emphasized the importance of continued outreach efforts.
"A lot of people say, well, it's useless, you know, trying to help people, but that's not true because there's a lot of people out here that's really looking for help and there's a lot of people out here that's looking for a new direction and someone needs to be present," George said.
The groups will continue the outreach as long as it's needed.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
