RATTAN - A marijuana-growing raid in southeastern Oklahoma Wednesday turned into a lifesaving operation after agents with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics found a man in a field of plants who had swallowed more than 30 pills.

Ricky Don Kelley, 56, was booked into the Pushmataha County jail, but not before his life was saved by OBN agents from an opioid overdose, according to spokesman Mark Woodward.

Woodward, in a post on the bureau's Facebook page, said agents were flying a marijuana reconnaissance mission Wednesday morning in Pushmataha County when they discovered a large crop a few miles east of Rattan.

“Our agents estimate about 100 plants were being cultivated on this piece of property," Woodward wrote. "We dispatched a ground team to the location and when they arrived, the suspected grower, most likely tipped off from seeing our spotter aircraft, was already out in the patch trying to destroy the plants with a tractor and setting the field on fire.”