Mental health officials in Trumbull County say there has been a rapid rise in the number of drug overdoses in just a two day period.

The Trumbull County Mental Health and Recovery Board and the Trumbull County Combined Health District announced on Friday that there were 23 overdoses reported in the county over the previous 48 hours.

According to Randee Shoenberger of the Trumbull County Combined Health District, all of the 23 people were successfully revived with the opiate overdose antidote Naloxone.

“I had to let our agencies know to brace for this because Cleveland had a huge number of overdoses two to three weeks ago. That’s about how long it takes for the drugs to reach us,” April Caraway, Executive Director of the Trumbull County Mental Health and Recovery Board said.

Caraway says in her seven years with the Board she has never seen this many overdoses in such a short period of time but, fears it won't be the highest.

“Fentanyl and heroin are being mixed with cocaine because people think the stimulant will keep them from overdosing and that is just not true”, said Caraway, who added that Trumbull county has plentiful supplies of Naloxone at local hospitals, recovery houses, agency housing and for the law enforcement agencies who carry it to revive people.

"It's very taxing and we have many individuals we're going back and reviving multiple times," said Capt. Jeff Orr with the Trumbull-Ashtabula Group Task Force.

Orr says a major step in combating the problem is treating the addiction. Another step is going after the major dealers -- an effort that could be supported by better communication among different law enforcement agencies.

"All the uniform officers respond and they gather information but they don't share it back to like a central database so that that information is clearly available when that next officer in that other department goes out on a call," said Orr.

Orr says that information could be as simple as a phone number to help track where the drugs originated.

Caraway says hundreds of residents have been saved with kits provided by Project DAWN, a state-wide Naloxone distribution project, which is locally available at the Trumbull County Combined Health District.

Naloxone is free to the public through a partnership with the health district and several grants.

For more information, visit the website at www.trumbullmhrb.org or call 330-675-2765