Authorities have identified the substance behind a Mountainair overdose case that sickened more than a dozen first responders and left three people dead. New Mexico State Police Chief Matt Broom said Friday that on-scene DEA laboratory analysis found fentanyl, methamphetamine and para-fluorofentanyl, also called P4 fentanyl, in powder form inside the home.
Police said first responders were exposed after arriving Wednesday at the home in Mountainair, New Mexico, where four people were found unresponsive. Two were pronounced dead at the scene, and a third later died at the University of New Mexico Hospital. One person survived, and both that survivor and one of the dead were given Narcan.
The scale of the exposure made the case one of the most serious responder incidents in the state this year. Officials said 25 people were exposed to the substance, 20 were hospitalized for treatment and later released, and two remained hospitalized after arriving in serious condition. Authorities identified two of the dead as Micah Rascon and Georgia Rascon.
Broom said preliminary findings tied the case to a powdered opioid substance inside the home. He described it as “a more illicit form or version of fentanyl,” underscoring how dangerous the mixture can be even before it is used. The finding matters because the call was first treated as a suspected overdose, but it turned into a mass-exposure event for the people who answered it.
For Mountainair, the case now stands as both an overdose investigation and a warning about what responders can face when they enter a scene before the substance inside is known. The unanswered question is no longer what the material was. It is how a powder containing fentanyl and para-fluorofentanyl spread so widely that it sickened 25 people, including the emergency crews who rushed in first.
