A man was found dead and covered in white powder at a home in Northeast Philly on Friday morning and investigators suspect he died of a fentanyl overdose, police said. A woman and a baby at the property also were hospitalized.
The man was unresponsive in the basement of the home on the 4000 block of Teesdale Street in Mayfair when first responders and a hazmat unit arrived, authorities said. Police reportedly found the white powder on the man's body and on other surfaces in the home.
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The woman also was unresponsive when first responders arrived, and she was revived by medics using Narcan, the drug used to reverse opioid overdoses, police said. The 6-month-old child at the home was taken with the woman to Jefferson Torresdale Hospital as a precaution.
There were about 50 Philadelphia Fire Department personnel deployed to the home, including the hazmat unit, and the fire department temporarily shut down Frankford Avenue between Cottman and Bleigh avenues during the investigation.
Police did not immediately identify the man who died.
Several first responders were also treated for possible exposure to the white powder, although no additional injuries were reported. Police are still working to confirm if the substance was fentanyl.
Fentanyl can be 50 times as potent as heroin and 100 times as potent as morphine, according to the CDC. The synthetic opioid has largely supplanted heroin in Philadelphia's street drugs and has been blamed for the worsening of the opioid epidemic nationwide over the last several years.