INDIANAPOLIS (WTHR) - It was crowded Tuesday night in a gathering room at Wheeler Mission’s East Market Street shelter.
What followed was a scene that could have been straight out of a horror movie.
"We had guys rolling around on the floor. We had one guy run into a wall. We had a guy try to bite another guy," said Wheeler's William Bumphus.
Police said it was the result of overdoses on a synthetic drug, spice. On the streets, it's known as flakka. This batch, investigators say, may have been mixed with PCP, causing hallucinations.
"The main thing, guys were just flat-out on the ground, non-responsive, just totally out," Bumphus explained.
Within about 24 hours, IMPD and Indianapolis EMS saw more of the same.
At one point, the calls for overdoses were coming in so fast, paramedics and ambulances staged near the mission, ready to respond.
All told, they handled as many as 25 overdoses, seven inside the shelter, eight outside and the rest within a two block radius.
"Because that's such a vulnerable population in that area, it's not uncommon to find dealers moving specifically to that area to target that population, that homeless population," said IEMS’s Mike Hayward.
The challenge for paramedics is they don't have anything in their kits that directly counters a synthetic drug overdose. Consequently, many of the overdose patients had to take a ride to the hospital.
"Unlike a heroin overdose, where Narcan is the magic bullet, we have no similar drug that has a similar effect on synthetic drugs," said Hayward.
"Many of the men here, they do suffer from addiction," said Bumphus, speaking of the shelter's residents.
Police arrested one person and said they found bags of drugs and guns on him in the process. They haven’t released his identity.
Wheeler Mission say they believe the person responsible was one of their residents. That's why they've beefed up security but say they still stop short of doing a full-body search for drugs when people come in to the shelter.
"We don't want to make it a jail-type of environment," Bumphus said.
Wheeler officials will meet with IMPD to talk about how they can set up regular shelter visits by officers and drug-sniffing dogs.
"It's a safe place to come and get shelter, but it's not safe to have drugs," said Bumphus.
EARLIER STORY:
Emergency medical officials in Indianapolis are sounding the alarm about a spike in overdose cases over a nearly 48-hour period.
Indianapolis EMS says they responded to 27 overdose calls in the 500 block of E. Market St. between Tuesday night and Thursday.
IEMS says the majority of the calls came from an area around Wheeler Mission.
IMPD said Thursday afternoon that additional resources were brought in to investigate the increase of overdoses.
Wheeler Mission officials allowed IMPD K-9 officers into the facility to conduct a search for narcotics. As the investigation continued, the Metro Drug Task Force and other public safety agencies began collaborating with each other to identify the distributor of this substance.
As a result of these efforts, a person of interest was identified and arrested. In total, police say up to 25 homeless citizens experienced medical issues consistent with the consumption of "Flakka."
Wheeler Mission Chief Development Officer Steve Kerr says the staff has been shaken by the recent events. He says the mission is elevating six part-time staff members to full-time status to increase staff presence in the mission.
Kerr hopes IMPD and the Marion County Sheriff's Department continue to increase their presence at the facility and utilize drug sniffing dogs to prevent drugs from entering the mission.