Three Putnam Inmates Transported To Hospital For Overdoses

Three inmates overdosed at the Putnam County Jail Monday morning, the second time in a month.

Sheriff Eddie Farris said they have reason to believe it was from fentanyl brought in by an inmate booked around 12:30 this morning. Farris said the inmate was able to bring the narcotics in undetected.

“The drugs are being placed up in the body cavities and sometimes it shows up on some people more than others and sometimes the amount is very small, although we all know and are educated at this point with fentanyl it doesn’t take very much,” Farris said. “It’s just hard to detect sometimes.”

Farris said the inmates were transported to the hospital and are expected to recover.

Farris said the investigation is still ongoing. He said charges will be brought forth both for the inmate who smuggled in the narcotics as well as for the inmates who took them.

Farris said they do everything they can to make sure inmates and personnel are safe from these drugs. However, he said Putnam County jail is no different from other jails and does not have a fool-proof detection system.

“85 to 90 percent of the people who are incarcerated in our facility and in most jails and prisons are in the facility because of drug-related charges directly or indirectly,” “So they just do almost anything to get the drug in. Sometimes we fail to catch it, we have scanners we have things in places and processes and boxes we try to check.”