Drug overdoses killed several people in Broome County over the past three months.

The district attorney's office Tuesday reported nine confirmed overdose deaths were recorded in the county during the third quarter of the year.

Nine people also died as a result of confirmed overdoses during the comparable period last year. The third quarter overdose death toll in the county was 13 in 2017 and 24 in 2016.

Broome County Executive Jason Garnar declared a state of emergency in late March after a dozen people died due to drug overdoses that month. At one point, officials said six drug-related deaths were recorded in the county in a ten-day period.

The state of emergency was in effect for about one month.

The spike in overdose deaths was attributed to more heroin and other drugs being laced with fentanyl.

This story was revised to reflect a corrected number of overdose deaths for the third quarter of 2016.

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

For breaking news and updates on developing stories, follow @BinghamtonNow on Twitter.

More From 99.1 The Whale