New London — After treating 14 suspected K2 overdoses in a 48-hour period that began Wednesday, Lawrence + Memorial Hospital officials on Friday said things appeared to be quieting down.

During a news conference outside the hospital Friday afternoon, Ron Kersey, coordinator of emergency medical services and emergency management, characterized the event as a “spike” but said it’s nothing the hospital wasn’t prepared to handle.

However, it has at least one expert worried that such overdoses will become more frequent as people become afraid of the increasing potency of heroin, which more and more often is laced with deadly fentanyl.

Kersey said officials first noticed an uptick on Wednesday, when they handled five suspected overdoses on K2, a synthetic marijuana also known as Spice that affects people in vastly different ways. The other nine came in to the hospital Thursday.

Late Friday, two additional people were treated for suspected K2 overdoses by the New London Fire Department near the New London Community Meal Center.

“Anytime you have a spike like this, it does stress the system,” he said. “We have to work together to meet that need.”

In the emergency medical services community, that working together includes calling on resources from other communities. During one of Thursday’s calls, for example, three people needed to be taken to the hospital. A Waterford ambulance assisted New London crews to make the transports.

“The emergency medical system is used to handling spikes,” Kersey said.

Kersey wouldn’t speculate what led to the sudden rash of K2 overdoses, but did say all 14 cases spawned from a small geographical area. New London Fire Department Battalion Chief Ted Sargent on Thursday pinpointed that area as being near the New London Community Meal Center.

Kersey said hospital officials from time to time see jumps in other types of drug overdoses, too, such as when they handled eight opioid overdoses in 24 hours in January last year.

“I don’t think we attribute it to any time of year,” he said of the spikes. “I think we attribute it to what’s getting into the area at that period.”

Kersey said he pored over every case the hospital saw from Wednesday through early Friday to come up with the 14 likely overdoses. Patient interviews, bystander interviews, police officer information and symptom presentation aided him. Still, he said, it’s not certain all 14 were K2 overdoses.

According to Waterford police Patrolman 1st Class Gil Maffeo, it’s difficult to tell in real time whether a person has used the drug.

“Some people are kind of zombie-like,” said Maffeo, a drug recognition expert who works to determine what a person has used when he or she is pulled over for driving under the influence.

“Some are extremely paranoid,” he continued. “Others have rapid heartbeats and hallucinations. Some come in with seizures. In some cases, they can be extremely violent.”

Maffeo said he personally has responded to two situations where a person had used the drug. In one case, a young man with dilated pupils was sweating profusely and screaming. He had just assaulted someone, Maffeo said. In the other, a young woman was nearly paralyzed from the drug, barely breathing.

“You have two opposite ends of spectrum,” he said. "Someone who’s catatonic, and someone who’s out of his mind.”

Maffeo said the reason people react so differently is there’s no set chemical compound for K2, although its roots generally stem from the same place: 1990s medical research.

It was a man named John W. Huffman who performed that research. He was looking to produce a legal synthetic cannabinoid that could be used for medicinal purposes. He published the blueprint for the chemical compounds he created along the way, likely not knowing it would spur an underground market for the drug.

“Now it’s being made overseas, along with bath salts, in India, China, Mexico,” Maffeo said. “And you’re not always sure what’s in it.”

K2 also is difficult to detect in labs because the compounds it consists of typically fall outside the purview of an ordinary drug test. As a result, Maffeo said, it's not uncommon to see use of such drugs in the military and other professions that require regular drug testing.

Connecticut legislators outlawed K2, which used to be widely sold as potpourri, in 2012. Still, Maffeo suspects more people will turn to K2 and bath salts as well as methamphetamine as they become scared of the increasing potency of heroin.

Maffeo emphasized that with drugs like K2 and bath salts, it’s often not an overdose that kills the user, but instead what he or she does while high. Some people who feel overheated after using the drug head for water, where they drown. Others, convinced something is inside them, inflict serious damage to themselves.

“With this stuff, people are acting out violently or doing something because of hallucinations,” he said. “That’s why they’re hurting themselves or hurting others.”

According to Kersey, the majority of those who likely overdosed this week were found outside in public spaces. None of the patients died.

“Hopefully, it’s worked its way through,” he said of the spike. “Today so far has been very good, very quiet. But we’re staffed up and ready. If we see something later this afternoon, we’ll just respond to that.”

Jeanne Milstein, New London's director of Human Services, said the city is taking an aggressive approach to try and get the recent K2 overdose patients into treatment, coordinating with L+M and local substance abuse treatment providers.

"We're working so hard to get people help," Milstein said.

As with the ongoing efforts to address the opioid addiction crisis, Milstein said the first priority is to address the treatment and prevention sides of the issue. Simultaneously, she said, police will be working to find the source of the problem.

Milstein said that while the unpredictable effects of K2 are well documented, she suspects that they were worsened by this week's extreme heat.

l.boyle@theday.com