Hartford Officer Kelsi Nanatovich watches as a sample of the marijuana joint recovered from porta potty tested positive for fentanyl after she set up an opioid test kit on the hood of her police cruiser. Photos © Eric Francis.
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION - A frantic call for help from a porta potty in the parking lot behind Hartford’s Town Hall late Sunday evening led police and firefighters to a homeless woman who did not realize the marijuana joint she had purchased earlier in the evening in neighboring West Lebanon was laced with fentanyl.
The local woman, who is in her 30s, was shaking and cold but still conscious and breathing when first responders found her shortly after 10 p.m. and loaded her into an ambulance for evaluation.
“It was supposed to just be weed, but when she smoked it she realized something was wrong and so she called police immediately,” Hartford Officer Kelsi Nanatovich explained, noting, “When you build trust with people in this community they will call you.”
Officer Nanatovich found the victim ill and shaken but still alert and breathing inside the porta potty behind Hartford’s Town Hall late Sunday evening.
Responders did not end up having to Narcan the woman but she was taken to the hospital after police retrieved the remnants of the joint from the porta potty and ran it through an opioid test kit which confirmed that an unknown amount of fentanyl was mixed in with the marijuana.
The woman told police that she had purchased the joint from friends outside a convenience store in nearby West Lebanon earlier in the evening. Police set out to warn other members of the homeless community that there is apparently a batch of adulterated weed going around.
“You know there’s more of this out there,” Nanatovich said. “This happens from time to time. It’s scary.”
Eric Francis is a veteran Upper Valley freelancer, covering crime, fires, natural disasters, and the occasional rabid bobcat.
