I’ve loved my move to Camden. Loved the lifestyle of walking to work. Loved that I’m able to afford to live on the waterfront. Loved how there are neighborhoods to explore, dives to discover, and how people have reached out to me and been unbelievably gracious and welcoming. I loved all these things so much that I occasionally find myself pushing the harsher sides of Camden from my mind.

That wasn’t possible on Sunday. On a walk from my apartment to my office, a walk I make multiple times a day, a man lay dying on the sidewalk of a heroine overdose. And just like that, I was playing a part in the dark side of the Camden drug trade.

I was the fifth person to the scene. On the ground lay a young, emaciated man of roughly my same age. His pants had paint stains on them. His eyes were shut.

The most ghastly part was his skin. It had turned a ghostly pale, with a blueish tint that made me think he might have died. That wasn’t far from the truth. One man was rapidly applying CPR, while another woman conveyed instructions from emergency services through the phone.

No, he’s not breathing. No, he doesn’t have a pulse.

Pump the chest. Hold the nose. Breathe into his mouth.

A third woman held his head, while another young man ripped off his clothing and poured water on him in an attempt to get him to wake up.

Police arrived within five minutes. By that time he had a faint pulse, and was breathing shallowly again. I’d just seen a man come back from the dead.

Then, just as quickly as they’d come, the bystanders dispersed. The man was lifted onto a gurney, while his friend, the one who had applied the CPR, was questioned by the police and emergency response team.

He rattled off answers to their questions: A drug overdose. It was heroine. Just two bags, it shouldn’t have done this. No, he doesn’t have any ID. No, I don’t know his name.

Everyone played their parts. The Emergency Response employees wheeled the now-breathing man into the ambulance. The police muttered under their breath that “it happened again.” His friend pretended he didn’t know him, despite looking through his car for the man’s ID.

In less than ten minutes from when I’d walked up, there was no trace of any of it.

As the ambulance screamed and shot up Cooper Street, I played my part as well. A woman who lived in the neighborhood asked me what happened. I told her what I’d heard:

Drug overdose. Heroine. Two bags.

She rattled off my answers into her cell phone, then, holding it to her chest, she told me:

Before I got my car, I used to take the bus to work and there was a week where this happened every day. Every day, for a week, someone died on the street where I got off that bus. They were selling this stuff called Killer Bags, it was supposed to be really strong heroine, but it had something else in it. They caught some kid in Pennsahauken lacing the heroine with something that was killing people. I don’t understand why people keep coming in to Camden when our heroine isn’t even pure.

And with that, she pulled her phone off her chest, resumed her conversation, and walked away.

I was left to consider her words. Left to consider my part in the drama, amidst heroes who melted back into the streets, police who saw this too many times, and a woman who bought a car so she wouldn’t have to see people die on her way back from work. Left to consider how many children took that same bus, and saw the same ghostly pale skin of a man overdosing on heroine.

I was left to consider the trauma of a neighborhood where this happened and everyone already knew their part to play. Left to consider next time, what mine would be.

Tags: heroine overdose