HUNTINGTON -- A string of heroin overdoses last week, including three in one day, has emergency personnel and law enforcement concerned that history might be repeating itself. In 14 months between 2007 and 2008, 14 heroin-related deaths were reported in the area. None of last week's overdoses was fatal.

"We get overdoses quite often, so the first one didn't really send up a red flag. After the second one on Aug. 16, I realized there was a problem and I wanted to say something early on. I do not want history to repeat itself," said Gordon Merry, director of Cabell County EMS. "We're more sensitive to this simply because we had quite a few deaths several years back when the heroin was so horrible around here."

The first incident occurred Aug. 13 near 5th Avenue and 6th Street when a man pulled his car into a parking lot and alerted someone that a female passenger in the car was not breathing. A second episode was reported in the same location three days later involving a female who overdosed in the bathroom of a nearby business. She had two children with her at the time. The third and fourth incidents occurred the same day -- one in the 1200 block of Jefferson Avenue and another in Huntington's East End. All were transported to area hospitals, with what Merry described as "good outcomes."

"People ask me if I think it's a bad batch of heroin and I think it's basically the same thing that happened last time. It's more potent than what they're used to. They're used to shooting up 1 cc and so they go ahead and shoot up 1 cc of this stronger heroin and have a reaction that puts them into respiratory arrest and then cardiac arrest," Merry said.

Huntington Police Department Sgt. Darrell Booth said he attributes the heroin surge to the fluctuation in OxyContin supply and marks a few high-profile drug arrests for making pills more difficult to come by, leaving heroin as the stand-in drug of choice.

"Our analysis shows some recent arrests have interrupted the OxyContin supply. Heroin is always going to be in the shadows of a strong pill market, which we have here, and when pills become too expensive or unavailable, opiate abusers are going to go after heroin," Booth said. "The effects and the methods by which people use it are remarkably similar and it's the same type of high."

Booth cited the lower costs of heroin for its popularity among addicts. He added that the Huntington Police Department Drug and Vice Unit and the Huntington Violent Crime Drug Task Force are actively investigating known heroin selling points in the city.

"Preliminary analysis suggests this is not a heroin invasion. Heroin will rise and recede like the tide in terms of what's happening in the pill market," he said, "and it's a cheaper alternative when pills are hard to find or prices go up."

Local arrests of key players, including Jose "Carlos" Salazar, whom Booth described as a top dealer, and large drug seizures by the Ohio State Highway Patrol, caught en route from Columbus and Detroit, have slowed local drug supply.

"You have to remember, heroin addicts, pill addicts, are physically dependent upon them. If they don't get their fix, they fall into a physiological crisis. In an addict's vernacular, they have to 'stay well,' so those who are addicted to opiates will often turn to heroin as an alternative," he said. "It supersedes everything else in their lives."

It was the overdose when two small children were present last week that hit Merry the hardest.

"It's sad when you have your kids involved. It's hard to believe something like this can so take over your life," he said. "Basically, they're playing with not only their lives, but their families' lives and their children's' lives."

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