(24/7 News) -- Fentanyl is suspected as the cause of a sudden spike in overdose deaths in Franklin County.
The county coroner's office says 18 people have died in the past week after taking some form of the powerful painkiller. Most of the overdoses were reported in west Columbus, with others in Gahanna and Reynoldsburg.
The last time that the Columbus area saw such a spike in fentanyl deaths, it then filtered down with a rash of similar overdoses in the Scioto Valley.