Groton — Members of the "A" shift of the Poquonnock Bridge Fire Department stood behind Engine truck 32 inside their Long Hill Road station at roll call one morning last week, sipping coffee as a grateful father, with tears in his eyes, thanked them for saving his daughter's life after a heroin overdose in October 2015.

The firefighters/emergency medical technicians were happy to hear the young woman has remained sober and is rebuilding her life.

She was turning blue due to lack of oxygen when Deputy Chief Timothy Driscoll broke the window of her car, which had left the roadway, and pulled her to the ground.

He performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation and gave her Narcan.

She started breathing.

Like other first responders around the state and nation, the firefighters, ambulance crews, police and paramedics who work in Groton are on the front line of the opioid epidemic, rushing to call after call of "unresponsive person, possible overdose."

They have treated addicts in vehicles, homes, fast-food restaurants, hotels and stores.

Many of the patients are "repeat customers," addicts who vow to get clean after being revived.

Most continue using, according to the first responders, succumbing to their body's unrelenting need for drugs because they are not immediately guided into treatment programs.

The result of continued heroin use, particularly when the drug is laced with the powerful opiate fentanyl, is often deadly, and it's taking its toll on the men and women who live to save lives.

Even those who have worked in emergency services for decades say they have never seen anything like the recent surge in opioid addiction.

"We've seen a lot of death," said Poquonnock Bridge Fire Chief Joseph Winski. "It seems like it's getting worse instead of better."

"These guys take their job extremely seriously. They feel great when they can make a difference, but know they might be back," he said. "It's a medical and health issue, and it's impacting a lot of services."

Tammy and Joe de la Cruz, founders of Community Speaks Out, have been speaking to first responders during roll calls.

The group works with families of opioid addicts, holds monthly support group meetings and in the past several months has helped get 30 people into treatment.

At the Poquonnock Bridge station last week, the couple handed out their business cards so that the firefighters would have something to give distraught family members.

Tammy de la Cruz said she is working with Lawrence + Memorial Hospital to update the handouts given to overdose patients upon leaving the hospital.

Joe de la Cruz said Groton first responders saved 17 people with Narcan last year.

"When you save somebody, you're saving a human being," he told the first responders. "You guys know that, but there's the fatigue."

On April 15, Groton first responders were called to three heroin overdoses within three hours.

They were able to save two of the patients, but the third was pronounced dead on the living room floor of his father's home.

It was the man's fourth overdose in two years, according to police.

The responders who handled the April 15 calls agreed to speak to The Day, but asked that the patients not be identified due to privacy concerns.

All of the overdose cases remain under investigation.

First overdose - 5:44 p.m., Groton Wal-Mart

Groton Town Police officer Nicholas de la Cruz was patrolling on Long Hill Road when the call came in for an unresponsive person in the bathroom at Wal-Mart.

He put on his lights and siren and headed to Kings Highway, thinking it was probably another heroin overdose.

"It always comes to mind, just because of what's been going on," de la Cruz said.

Inside the store, a man approached the officer and said he had gone into a stall in the men's bathroom and heard "nervous" movement from another stall and people leaving the bathroom.

The man looked into the stall, saw the man passed out between the toilet and wall, and alerted store officials.

It was the 34-year-old man's second overdose in two months, according to police.

The man's eyes were not responding to light when de la Cruz and Officer Michael McCarthy pulled him out of the stall onto the bathroom floor. De la Cruz rubbed the man's chest with his knuckles, trying to revive him with a "sternum rub."

It didn't work.

Poquonnock Bridge firefighter/EMTs on the "C" shift had been getting ready for dinner at their headquarters on Long Hill Road. They rushed to the scene on Engine 32 and took over the medical care while police began gathering information.

Every overdose is treated as a crime scene, according to Detective Lt. John Varone.

The firefighters were using an Ambu bag, or self-inflating mask, to help the patient breathe, and had sprayed 1 mg of Narcan in each of the patient's nostrils when Lawrence + Memorial paramedic Caitlin Hurd arrived.

Nasal Narcan takes several minutes to take effect, and patients often require additional doses, Hurd said via email.

She started an intravenous line and slowly gave him an additional 2 mg of Narcan until the patient started breathing regularly.

The lifesaving drug nalaxone sometimes causes patients to spit, vomit or become unruly, posing a challenge for first responders.

The presence of used needles poses another danger.

In the Wal-Mart case, the patient bit his tongue and was spitting up blood.

Winski, the fire chief, had just arrived home when he learned his crew may have been exposed to bodily fluids. He drove back to Groton to ensure his crew was OK and to fill out the appropriate paperwork.

He would not go home for several hours.

Emergency Medical Technician Juliet Hodge had just arrived at Groton Ambulance headquarters on Route 117 when she heard the call.

Her shift didn't start until 6, but she quickly changed out of the clothes she had worn at her day job as director of economic development and marketing at SECTER and jumped on the ambulance with her partner.

"It's a 'hot response' when you go to something like that," Hodge said in a telephone interview. "It's lights and sirens and what not. You go the highway and get there as fast as you can."

The police, firefighters and medic were on scene when the ambulance arrived.

Hodge said a little girl was standing in the doorway of the Wal-Mart, "looking horrified," as she and her partner rolled the patient out on a stretcher.

Hurd, the paramedic, rode to L+M with the patient and the ambulance crew so that she could monitor his vital signs.

Town police stayed behind to interview witnesses and collect evidence, including video surveillance tape.

In addition to the uniform officers and their supervisor, Sgt. Paul Reams, Varone went to the scene with a detective and three members of the Regional Community Enhancement Task Force, which was formed in response to the increasing number of overdoses.

Varone said he always sends experienced officers and detectives to the hospital to try to find out what the person used, how much they used and when they used it.

The police also have a "heart-to-heart talk" with overdose patients, Varone said. They tell the patients that they almost died and urge them to get help immediately.

"When they're down at the bottom is when we want to reach out to them," he said. "There's a very small window of opportunity, if we can get the person into treatment right away. Otherwise they're fighting that beast all night long."

Second overdose - 8:06 p.m., 164 D St.

Members of Groton's "tiered response" system — fire department, ambulance, police and paremedics — arrived at about the same time to find a 29-year-old on the floor.

The man was visiting friends at the home, which is located in the High Rock Mobile Home park off Buddington Road, according to police.

L+M paramedic Doug Dole had just started his shift and completed a check of his gear when the second overdose of the night occurred. He drove from the Pequot Health Center to D Street.

Officer de la Cruz had left the Wal-Mart case and gone to a disturbance on Midway Oval. Hearing the call to D Street, which was in his assigned patrol area, he spoke to his sergeant and headed that way.

The patient was gasping when Dole arrived and soon stopped breathing altogether.

One of the EMTs put a bag valve mask on the man to help him breathe, and Dole inserted a tube into his nose to keep the airway open.

Dole administered two milligrams of Narcan through an IV, trying to use the smallest dose necessary to revive him without bringing on some of the adverse effects, like sweating, nausea, headaches, vomiting and agitation.

"With these overdoses we've been getting the last several months, they're frequently overdoses of heroin that's been mixed with fentanyl, and it's hard to get the desired result without a half milligram or more," Dole said.

He gave the patient another milligram but didn't get the effect he wanted.

He administered a second dose and, within a minute, the man started breathing.

He woke up disoriented and nauseated, so Dole gave the patient medicine for the nausea.

The crews, who were working in a tight space with narrow hallways, then had to figure out how to get the man, who was heavy, onto the stretcher, out of the house and into the ambulance. The paramedic rode with the patient.

"We didn't need to go screaming to the hospital," Dole said. "We were managing him on the way. No lights and sirens."

In the emergency room, the man would be monitored for several hours because sometimes the opiate overdoses outlast the effects of the Narcan.

While the EMTs and paramedics worked on the patient, police officers had started their investigation.

They spoke to witnesses and went to the man's car to see if they saw any drugs or paraphernalia within plain sight.

Canine Officer Shawn Lisee walked around with his dog, Nico, conducting an "open air sniff" to see whether the dog would alert to any odors.

Later, at the hospital, officer de la Cruz spoke to the patient, who was alert and willing to speak.

"He did say it's easy to get heroin," de la Cruz said.

While the crews were still there, Winski, the fire chief, turned to Varone, the detective lieutenant, and said, "We've got another one."

Several of the responders recognized the address, having been there three times before.

Third overdose - 8:29 p.m., 193 Midway Oval

With the Poquonnock Bridge engine truck blocked in at the D Street call, Chief Winski sent out the district's ladder truck, No. 35.

Detective Lt. Varone called Chief Louis J. Fusaro Jr. to let him know what was going on, and Fusaro headed to police headquarters. Varone said he held off calling in additional detectives in case they were needed later for other incidents.

Officer Eric Chomka, who would be the case officer for the fatal overdose investigation, had been to two burglary calls and the Midway Oval altercation before he was dispatched to the tiny house at the intersection of Midway Oval and Miami Court.

Chomka and Officer Daniel Wilczek arrived at the same time.

The man's father had found him face down in a sitting position in the bedroom, according to police.

While Chomka went to his cruiser for oxygen bags and a defibrillator, Wilczek and McCarthy, who had now arrived, moved the man into the living room for easier access.

Wilczek started chest compressions, then the firefighters and EMTs from Groton arrived and took over the medical effort while police spoke to the father outside and began their investigation.

The EMTs were alternating with firefighters to perform chest compressions when L+M paramedic Jason Vincent arrived.

For the next 20 to 25 minutes, the victim received advanced life support treatment, including an airway tube and epinephrin administered intravenously.

Vincent was in touch with the emergency room doctor.

"We called the doctor and described the scene and what we've done," Vincent said. "If the doctor agrees with us that we've done all we can, they say we can pronounce them dead."

The man did not survive his fourth overdose.

"Tragically, this is the end result of this crisis," Vincent said. "This is unfortunately common."

As the medical crews packed up their equipment and left, the police remained behind, conducting a survey of the body to look for needle marks, searching for drugs, talking to possible witnesses and calling the medical examiner.

Chomka, the case officer, filled in a 10-page death scene checklist to ensure the police had all the information they needed.

Lt. Varone, who has been making a lot of death notifications lately, went outside and gave the father the news.

"He's dead."

k.florin@theday.com