The Tavares Police Department has released a video of the moment an officer overdosed after being exposed to fentanyl during a traffic stop.
A source says that Officer Courtney Bannick started to overdose after taking the powerful drug by accident during a traffic stop on Tuesday.
Reports say that Bannick said she was about to go back to her precinct to test the drug, but as she was walking to her car, she suddenly found it hard to breathe.
We made the mindful decision that we’re going to go back to the police department because it was windy. We’ll test [the narcotics] there. Sadly, I just never made it there,
Bannick said, per a source.
Watch the shocking video below:
As soon as I started talking, I was light-headed a little bit and started almost choking,” she continued. “I couldn’t breathe. I wasn’t getting enough air and I remember kind of wheezing, gasping.
A fellow officer noticed right away that something was wrong and gave her three doses of Narcan, which is used to treat overdoses. The veteran officer was then taken to a nearby hospital, but she has since gone back to work.
Bannick, who was handling the drug while wearing surgical gloves, doesn’t remember how she took it, but she thinks it might have been because she touched her face at some point.
I’m very mindful that I don’t touch my face if I have gloves on, but did I wipe my nose with my wrist? I don’t know,
she said.
Bannick wanted the graphic video to be shown to show how dangerous fentanyl is. She also said that the drug is always changing.
We’re not dealing with pharmaceutical-grade fentanyl,
she said.
Every day these street chemists are coming up with something because drug users are building a tolerance to it.
Bannick also told her coworkers how much she appreciated how quickly they could think on their feet.
If I was searching that car alone, or testing those drugs alone, or whatever the case may be and I didn’t have Narcan available, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t be here right now,
she said.
The suspects in the traffic stop, whose names have not been given in the news, are being charged with felony drug crimes.
