PORTLAND, Maine (AP) Officials say an airborne exposure of fentanyl into a Maine jail’s intake area closed it to new inmates for about two hours over the weekend.
Cumberland County Jail officials say the synthetic opioid was released while a prisoner was refusing to give up the drugs he had with them. When the 29-year-old Westbrook man was forced to the ground, some of the fentanyl he had one him spilled on the ground and was released into the air.
Intake officers were sent to Maine Medical Center for possible fentanyl exposure, treated, and later returned to work.
The intake area was closed between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. Friday while the intake area was decontaminated. The rest of the jail was placed on temporary lockdown before resuming normal operations.
