The college-level football world was rocked last week after a drug-related incident in Florida left an Army football player, and at least six others, in the hospital, with many of them in critical condition.
According to Fox News, an unnamed Army football player was hospitalized after a group of seven people, four of them Army Cadets at West Point, were found unconscious during a Spring Break vacation at a Florida Airbnb home. The cause of the hospitalizations was reportedly due to a batch of fentanyl-laced cocaine.
Wilton Manors Police Department made the announcement, adding later that a total of seven individuals had been transported to local area hospitals, with at least two of them in critical condition and currently on ventilators.
“At least six people were hospitalized in Fort Lauderdale for ingesting tainted cocaine Thursday. Four are cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and one of those four is an Army football player, according to an Army spokesperson,” Stars and Stripes tweeted.
The details
Local authorities, including Fort Lauderdale Fire-Rescue Battalion Chief Steve Gollan, described what first-responders witnessed upon arriving at the scene.
Shockingly, at least two of the seven individuals were hospitalized as a result of attempting to perform CPR on two of the unconscious individuals who had taken the tainted drugs. Fentanyl is so incredibly powerful, even trace amounts of residue can kill a human being.
It’s unclear how many of the individuals had collapsed as a result of using the laced drugs, but authorities indicated that the opioid-overdose-reversing drug naloxone was deployed to revive some of them.
So far, two victims are still on ventilators, two of them are in stable condition, one is reportedly in “good” condition, and one has already been released.
According to the Associated Press, there was at least one other Army football player at the vacation house, but that person was not involved in the drug overdose.
West Point reacts
The prestigious military school released a short statement after news broke of the potentially deadly incident.
“The U.S. Military Academy is aware of the situation involving West Point cadets, which occurred Thursday night in Wilton Manors, FL,” the school told a local newspaper. “The incident is currently under investigation and no other details are available at this time.”
Fentanyl is becoming a serious, deadly situation in the U.S., especially as Mexican drug cartels continue to ship the drug, which is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, across President Joe Biden’s open borders. One would think that the U.S. government would place a much higher priority on combating such a crisis.
