Tuesday, Yakima firefighters posted to Facebook saying they had a total of 15 overdoses within a 24-hour span, not including calls from the previous day or ones that they were currently working on.
Since that post, they say the number increased to around 17 or 18 with a majority of the calls near the North First Street area.
Generally, when they are dispatched to overdoses, the calls come in as CPR, requiring two fire engines to respond, using up their limited recourses.
"Just yesterday we had a brownout of ambulances again, so even when we arrived on scene, there's no ambulance to even transport the patient to the hospital," said Mark Buskas, Vice President of Yakima Firefighters IAFF Local 469. "It's taking up a lot of resources we need for other calls besides the overdoses. For example, yesterday that call for the child that was backed over by a pick-up truck came out right after we had just run a bunch of overdoses."