A drug overdose is believed responsible for the death of a “young adult female” in a Langley City rental apartment building on Saturday afternoon, police said.
The coroner’s office was called to the scene.
Langley RCMP were called to the multi-unit building on Eastleigh Crescent at 4:30 p.m.
Multiple units of police and ambulance, along with a fire department truck, responded to the call.
One resident told The Times that he heard a woman screaming before the police arrived.
Drug overdose cases in Langley City have risen 500 per cent since 2015, much of it due to the use of synthetics like fentanyl and carfentanyl.
A recent report by Langley City fire chief Rory Thompson said the number of overdose calls handled by firefighters rose from 80 overdoses in 2015 to 228 in 2016.
The fire department expects the final tally will be about five times higher than it was in 2015.
Thompson noted the Fraser Health Authority has found the majority of cases are not homeless, that 70 per cent of overdose patients treated at the ER “have a home.”
All City firefighters, including paid on-call firefighters, have been trained in the administration of the anti-overdose naloxone drug (Langley RCMP have also been trained).
The officer in charge of the Langley RCMP detachment, Supt. Murray Power has warned Carfentinil, a synthetic large animal sedative that is far more powerful than fentanyl, has been identified in the Langleys by drug enforcement investigators who have seized it from local drug dealers.
Province-wide, the latest figures from the the BC Coroners Service show an average of about seven overdose-related deaths every two days.
A total of 780 lives have been lost to drug overdoses so far this year – more than double the number of deaths at this point last year.
There were 111 suspected drug overdose deaths in June.
