VANCOUVER — Paramedics responded to a record number of overdose calls on Friday, B.C. Emergency Health Services says.
There were 131 calls reporting suspected overdoses that day – “the most recorded in a single day,” BCEHS wrote on Twitter Monday.
“This is double (the) average daily overdoses.”
Those calls were made in an area spanning Chilliwack, in B.C.’s Lower Mainland, to the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island.
BCEHS said in the post that a person who has overdosed has a 99 per cent chance of survival when paramedics are called.
The striking statistic follows another sombre milestone met in the province: more people died of illicit drug overdoses in May than in any other month in B.C.’s history.
Data released earlier in June showed 170 people died last month.