Desperate Moments at a Binghamton Laundromat

Police and medics raced to a laundromat on Binghamton's West Side to try to save a woman who apparently overdosed on heroin.

The frantic efforts to save a life unfolded at the coin laundry at Main and Edwards streets shortly after 12:30 Tuesday afternoon.

A man who discovered the unconscious woman sprawled on the floor of the business called 911.

Binghamton fire medics and a Superior Ambulance crew worked furiously for about 15 minutes to revive the woman.

A witness we'll call "Rachel" said the woman and a man had injected heroin in her car moments earlier. The woman managed to walk into the laundromat before collapsing. The man who had been with her is believed to have run away.

Rachel said she stayed to watch the medics because she needed to be reminded of what she would face if she ever started using heroin again. She said she had been addicted for a long time but now has been clean for two years.

Rachel said it appeared the woman who overdosed in the laundromat had received about six doses of naloxone - the opioid reversal medication that had saved her life a few years ago.

The woman who was found on the floor of the laundromat was still unconscious when she was loaded into an ambulance and taken to the hospital. Police at the laundromat didn't know whether she would survive.

Binghamton detectives arrived to start their investigation. They examined the woman's car, which Rachel said was filled with children's clothing.

Contact WNBF News reporter Bob Joseph: bob@wnbf.com

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