EAST LIVERPOOL, Ohio – An East Liverpool Police officer accidentally touched Fentanyl and overdosed while responding to a drug-involved call Friday night.
Friday around 8:50 p.m., East Liverpool patrolman Chris Green responded to a traffic stop at the bottom of Lisbon Street at West 8th Street.
According to a police report, East Liverpool Police had blocked in a blue Monte Carlo after watching the driver — 25-year-old Justin Buckle — perform what they believed was a drug transaction.
“We think they were trying to flee, but they were blocked in,” East Liverpool Captain Patrick Wright said. “Once they got blocked in, they tried to dispose of the evidence in the vehicle.
“There was white powder on the seat, on the floor, on the guys’ shoes and on his clothing.”
After Buckle and passenger Cortez Collins, 24, were arrested, patrolman Green followed station protocol for handling drugs by putting on gloves and a mask when he searched the car.
But when he got back to the station, another officer noticed Greene had some of the white powder on his shirt.
“Just out of instinct, he tried to brush it off — not thinking,” Wright said.
An hour later, Green passed out at the station from overdosing on the white powder that police think was Fentanyl. The drug can get into the body just through contact with the skin.
“They called an ambulance for him and the ambulance responded for him,” Wright said. “They gave him one dose of Narcan here and then transported him to East Liverpool City Hospital, where they gave him three additional doses of Narcan.”
Captain Wright said Green is fine as of Sunday.
He added it’s a scary example of how the drug epidemic has forced police officers to change aspects of their job.
“We changed our procedures to where we used to field test-drugs,” Wright said. “We don’t do that any longer because of accidental exposures.”
Buckle, of East Liverpool, and Collins, of Cleveland, are being charged with tampering with evidence. Collins had an active warrant out for his arrest out of Euclid.
