Ride along with the Anchorage Fire Department to see the impact the synthetic drug Spice has on Alaska's largest city.
On Nov. 17 and Dec. 1, multimedia journalist Scott Jensen rode with Anchorage Fire Department emergency medical services battalion chief Michael Crotty to get a first-hand look at the city's Spice problem.
Since mid-July, the department has reported a major increase in suspected Spice-related emergencies.
In October, nearly one-fifth of all transports were thought to be Spice-related, draining resources from other emergency calls.
"There (are) lots of times that we will not have enough resources to go to a lot of different calls because we have so many tied up on the Spice users," fire department dispatcher Andrea Hutzel said.
Adding to the stress of first responders is uncertainty around how a person on Spice will respond, Crotty said. Some users fight and struggle with medics; others are completely unresponsive and require a breathing tube. These symptoms can change in an instant, Crotty said, and in some cases are life-threatening.
Many substance abuse calls, including alcohol, come from "the same population," Crotty said, a troubling statistic for medical providers.
"The 911 emergency medical system is intended to deal with emergency patients ... But that's not much of what we do. Much of what we do is centered around routine calls that involve alcohol abuse or substance abuse," Crotty said.
Anchorage criminalized Spice in mid-November. In early December, the state released its investigation that, among other findings, concluded that the drug contributed to the deaths of four Anchorage residents.