DAYTON, Ohio – The city of Dayton is home to approximately 140,000 people.

• Overdose deaths in Dayton appear to have peaked in 2017 and early 2018
• City has embraced treatment and recovery and peer support
• Next crisis may center around crystal methamphetamine

It's the birthplace of Orville and Wilbur Wright who invented flight. It's home to Wright Patterson Air Force Base and a slew of manufacturing and healthcare companies.

But's also home to the nation's opioid epidemic.

In 2017, the city alone saw approximately 600 overdose deaths. It started getting bad in 2015 when Dr. Randy Marriott of Premier Health noticed as soon as one emergency room bed was cleared of an overdose patient another one was coming in.

“We went through a number of years where this was the new normal,” Marriott said in an interview with Spectrum News 1 at Premier Health's Miami Valley Austin Boulevard Emergency Center.

Marriott is the Premier Health EMS Medical Director. He's been at the forefront of the fight against opioids for years in the Dayton area.

“It became clear that we needed more treatment options,” Marriott said. “We would get an overdose patient, we would resuscitate them or EMS would resuscitate them or even the police at some point in [20]17... then we had nothing to do with them. We had no place to send them and we had very little direction to give them.”

Dayton has added dozens of treatment and recovery facilities in recent years. Goodwill Easter Seals Miami Valley in Dayton opened Main Street Recovery in 2016 that initially treated about 120 individuals.

This year, according to GESMV Vice President of Programs Teri Shirk, the program will treat more than 600 people.

“We feel like mental health services, behavioral health services, recovery services, are a huge point in keeping people out of jail, as well as, reducing the recidivism rate for people returning to jail.”

The Main Street Recovery Program provides counseling and case management for people dealing with mental health or substance abuse problems. Another program GESMV offers is the Miracle Clubhouse which allows people going through treatment the opportunity to participate in activities for individual growth. Participating in Miracle Clubhouse is voluntary but the center will provide a hot meal each day for people who complete tasks whether through group work of individual performance at the clubhouse.

GESMV is also one of Ohio's leaders in peer training to provide support to individuals who are considering treatment and recovery options.

“We've trained over 200 people in the last couple of years,” said Shirk. “We just had a couple of our graduates get jobs all the way up in Cuyahoga County. We're very excited that the program continues to grow.”

Peers who are former or recovering addicts themselves go through extensive training. They will then work individually with incoming clients to provide support whether through motivation, employment services, or meeting attendance.

Dr. Marriott believes Dayton has turned a corner as overdose deaths in the latter half of 2018 have dropped considerably. Dayton is on pace to have fewer than 300 overdose deaths this year.

“We've turned a corner,” Marriott explains. “And I'm not letting my guard down. That's not to say the next crisis is not around the corner. And it may not be with opioids it may be with stimulates.”

Marriott is concerned the growing availability of crystal methamphetamine may be the next crisis.

“But for right now, the number opioid overdoses are down, the number of opioid deaths are down. What you attribute that to is somewhat debatable but in essence I think it is the early intervention, I think it is the treatment options. I think it is the broad distribution and application of Naloxone.”

Naloxone is available over-the-counter and may be helping prevent overdose deaths, or at least hospital visits by people who overdose. But Marriott says Dayton's rapid intervention approach is also helping.

“There is a police officer and a Dayton Fire/EMT who do rapid intervention and have been doing this for a couple of years where they go and try to find these folks have been resuscitated with Narcan and try to talk to them about getting into treatment. And then can direct them to the treatment options in the community. And we've found that about three days after the event is when they are most open to those suggestions. Immediately thereafter they're typically not ready but if you catch them in that 72 hour period there tends to be success.”

Dayton has also been a test market for companies and treatment options to hopefully combat the opioid crisis on the national level.