Recovering Addicts Find Their Drug Counselors Dead of Overdose

Two staff members of a Pennsylvania halfway house for recovering drug addicts were found dead Wednesday—from a drug overdose. The names of the victims were not released, but officials report they were employed at the Freedom Ridge Recovery Lodge in suburban Philadelphia. Residents at the West Chester halfway house found the staff members dead Sunday afternoon, with plastic bags of heroin near their bodies, authorities said Wednesday. Police believe the drugs may have been laced with fentanyl, a dangerous additive that has been blamed for a spike in overdoses across the country. Pennsylvania, with a drug-overdose rate that is “statistically higher” than that of other states, has seen overdoses skyrocket since 2014. Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan described the drug counselors’ deaths as a “frightening example” of the state’s opioid epidemic in a statement released Wednesday. “The staff members in charge of supervising recovering addicts succumbed to their own addiction and died of opioid overdoses. Opioids are a monster that is slowly consuming our population,” Hogan said. Gov. Tom Wolf deemed the opioid epidemic a “public-health crisis the likes of which we have not before seen” last September.