Lambton’s overdose calls are rising again. EMS is the red light

Lambton’s overdose crisis appeared to ease in 2025, but the first five months of 2026 suggest that relief may have been temporary. EMS calls have more than doubled from the same period last year, making the spike a clear warning that the crisis is again reaching the point of medical emergency.

Lambton’s overdose crisis did not disappear in 2025, It dimmed in one of the clearest public numbers.

After a year when opioid-related EMS calls fell, the first five months of 2026 suggest the crisis is climbing again. Lambton EMS responded to 149 opioid-poisoning calls by the end of May, compared with 62 during the same period last year. May alone brought 36 calls, double the number reported in May 2025.

That is not a subtle change. It is a warning.

In all of 2025, Lambton EMS responded to 194 opioid-related overdose calls, down from 273 in 2024. The decline offered some reason for cautious optimism after years of worsening local harm. Naloxone distribution, outreach, treatment pathways, public-health warnings and new service connections were all expanding while the number of calls fell.

But the first five months of 2026 have changed that context. By the end of May, Lambton had already recorded more than three-quarters of the previous year’s entire call total.

The figures do not explain exactly why the increase is happening. They do show one thing clearly: far more overdoses are reaching the point of medical emergency. Whatever improvement appeared during 2025 has not continued.

EMS is where the overdose crisis becomes impossible to ignore. By the time someone calls 911, prevention has already failed, treatment has not yet succeeded, and the situation has become urgent enough that someone needs paramedics to keep a person alive.

Death data can lag. Toxicology takes time. Hospital information can be incomplete. Public-health reports often describe what happened months earlier. Ambulance calls show that the emergency is already unfolding.

Lambton’s opioid crisis has been elevated for years. The Lambton Drug and Alcohol Strategy says EMS received an average of about six opioid-overdose calls per month in 2018. By 2021, that had risen to about 25 per month.

In just three years, the average number of opioid-overdose calls attended by Lambton EMS had quadrupled. The crisis did not emerge overnight. It built until emergency response became part of everyday life.

Deaths followed a similar trajectory. Opioid-related deaths rose from 13 Lambton residents in 2018 to 43 in 2020, before falling to still-elevated preliminary totals of 38 in 2021 and 30 in 2022.

The decrease in calls during 2025 was therefore not a return to normal. It was a quieter year inside a crisis that had already become entrenched.

That is what makes the 2026 numbers so concerning. They do not reveal a new problem. They show an existing crisis becoming more visible again.

Lambton has added response capacity. One of the clearest examples is the Community Health Integrated Care team, known as CHIC, which launched in June 2024. The team pairs Bluewater Health substance-use navigators with Lambton EMS paramedics and operates daily from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Its role is to provide on-scene support, connect people to primary care and withdrawal management, and divert lower-acuity cases away from emergency departments or police detention where possible. Between June 7, 2024 and March 31, 2025, CHIC recorded 2,151 engagements with community members.

That work matters. Paramedics are responding. Public health is tracking the crisis. Outreach teams are connecting people with care. Naloxone is available. New addiction and recovery services have been added.

The spike does not suggest those programs lack value. It suggests the crisis is growing at least as quickly as the community’s capacity to respond.

The wider drug-supply context makes the increase more serious. Health Canada describes fentanyl as a main driver of overdose-related harms and deaths in Canada and warns that it cannot be seen, smelled or tasted in the illegal drug supply.

The crisis is not simply about individual choices. It is shaped by an unpredictable and toxic supply in which an unexpected contaminant, a stronger dose or using alone can become fatal.

An opioid EMS call is therefore more than a number. It can mean someone is no longer breathing, or barely breathing. It can mean a family member, friend, shelter worker, stranger or paramedic is trying to keep that person alive.

It is also a measure of how often Lambton’s overdose crisis is reaching the point of medical emergency.

The mistake would be treating the decline in 2025 as proof the crisis was under control. It was not.

Every opioid EMS call begins the same way: someone decides the situation has become too serious to handle alone. The sharp increase in those calls does not simply mean more statistics. It means more moments where the community reaches the point of emergency.

That is why the 2026 numbers matter, they are not measuring addiction, they are measuring crisis.