Jail official: Guards not believed involved as in March case

Jail officials say all of the OD victims are expected to be OK. (courtesy photo)

COPYRIGHT2017© DOVER - Unlike a March incident in which a Strafford County Jail guard allegedly smuggled drugs to inmates, an official at the Sheriff's Office said on Tuesday he doubts any guards were involved in the supplying of suspected drugs that caused overdoses in three inmates.

The suspected overdoses occurred shortly before 9 a.m. after the morning headcount was completed when jail personnel noticed suspicious activity, according to a press release from the Sheriff's Office.

Jail guards administered Narcan, an often life-saving heroin overdose antidote, prior to the arrival of three ambulances which transported the victims for additional treatment.

All were expected to fully recover, officials said.

"It's not likely a guard," Dan Auger, executive director of the Sheriff's Office, said Tuesday afternoon.

An investigation into how the inmates got the drugs is being conducted by the Strafford County Sheriff's Office, and criminal charges are possible, Auger added.

In March jail guard Bryan Shipman, 25, of Rochester was charged with attempting to smuggle drugs into the Strafford County Jail where he worked as a corrections officer.

Shipman, who had worked at the jail almost two years, was intercepted by jail personnel as he arrived for his afternoon shift. Officials estimated he was carrying $2,000-$5,000 of what is believed to be fentanyl or heroin and cocaine.

The jail is a no-contact facility, which mean the two major ways inmates get drugs is by having them smuggled in during booking or when they return from work release jobs. Having them smuggled in by staff like in the March case is far less likely, jail officials say.