An inmate at the Cumberland County Jail was administered Narcan on Sunday after she suffered some type of drug overdose, a jail official said.
Capt. Steve Butts, in charge of operations at the jail, identified the inmate as Danyielle Banks, 43, of Biddeford.
Butts said corrections officers and jail medical staff came to Banks’ aid around 4:45 p.m. Sunday when she started having “seizure-like symptoms” while sitting at a table in the pod day room of the jail housing unit.
“Medical staff treated inmate Banks with Narcan,” Butts said in a news release. “Banks is suspected of using a controlled substance.”
An ambulance crew from Portland was called to the jail and transported Banks to Maine Medical Center for treatment. The jail and hospital are in the same neighborhood, about a half-mile from each other.
Banks was treated and released a few hours later. She was returned to the jail, where she was being held Monday evening on charges from another county.
A jail intake worker said he did not know what the charges are because they originated in another county. Banks was admitted to the jail on March 23.
Butts said jail officials do not know yet if the drug was heroin. Narcan, also known as Naloxone, is used for the emergency treatment of known or suspected opioid overdoses.
In a follow-up email response to a query from the Portland Press Herald, Butts said: “Inmates have always smuggled drugs and contraband into jails and prisons. Some use the mail, some put it on/inside their body or swallow it.”
Butts said Sheriff Kevin Joyce “took the initiative” to have Narcan available in the jail given “the opiate problems in the community.”
The suspected drug overdose is under investigation by the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office.
The Cumberland County Jail had to deal last year with another drug overdose, which resulted in the death of Nikco Bashari Walton, 24, of Portland.
Walton, who was incarcerated after being charged with possession of cocaine and violating probation, was admitted to the jail on April 5, 2016. He died there on April 11.
The Office of Chief Medical Examiner determined that Walton’s death was accidental and caused by “acute intoxication” from fentanyl and morphine. The medical examiner’s report did not address the issue of how Walton obtained drugs inside the jail.
Dennis Hoey can be contacted at 791-6365 or at:
dhoey@pressherald.com
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