BRAINTREE – Over the past 15 months, seven Braintree residents have died from opioid overdoses, fire officials told the town council Tuesday night.

The town’s police and fire departments, along with Brewster Ambulance crews, were able to save 99 other people by using the drug naloxone, which is also known by its trade name, Narcan.



Braintree fire Lt. Kevin MacAleese tracks the demographics of people who overdose. Of the 106 people who overdosed in town in the past 15 months, 76 were male and 30 were female. The average age was 36, and 47 people were residents of the town, MacAleese said.



MacAleese said 88 percent of the overdoses were from heroin use. He said that of those people successfully treated for overdoses, only six were treated a second time.



MacAleese said there was a spike in the number of overdoses last summer, as heroin laced with fentanyl began to appear on the scene.



“It’s not the heroin of the 1970s,” he said, adding that the heroin available today is more powerful.



“There’s no wall that can keep it out of any community,” MacAleese said.



Fire Chief James O’Brien said today’s overdose victims don’t fit the old stereotypes of drug users.



The chief thanked both men and women of his department, the town’s police officers and the emergency medical workers of Brewster Ambulance for their efforts in preventing overdoes deaths.



Town council President Sean Powers said the opioid epidemic is “a scourge that is affecting every single town.”



The problem led the council to form a special opioid/heroin local action committee. The committee, on which Powers serves as an ex-officio member, will hold its initial meeting at 5:30 p.m. Monday at town hall.



District 6 Town Councilor Dan Clifford said the number of overdose deaths isn’t surprising. He said most people in town know someone who died from an overdose.



“We hear about overdose deaths so often, we’re becoming calloused to it,” he said.



Reach Fred Hanson at fhanson@ledger.com.



