Lake County deputies saving more opioid overdose victims

WAUKEGAN, Ill. (AP) - The sheriff's department in northern Illinois' Lake County says deputies are saving lives from opioid overdoses at a far faster clip than they did last year.

The department says in a statement that deputies in less than three months have administered the drug Naloxone to save the lives of six people who overdosed on opioids compared to 14 during all of 2016.

A department spokesman also says the saving last week of a 29-year-old man found unresponsive puts at more than 30 instances in which deputies have used Naloxone since they began administering the drug two years ago.

The man was found unconscious and not breathing in a vehicle. Sheriff's deputies administered Naloxone after learning the man ingested heroin before becoming unresponsive.