The man responsible for more than two dozen heroin overdoses -- which all occurred in one day in a state deemed the ground zero for the opioid epidemic -- faces up to 20 years in federal prison.

Bruce Lamar Griggs, 22, pleaded guilty on Monday to distribution of heroin, about six months after 26 people overdosed in Huntington, a city in the southwest corner of West Virginia. The 911 calls came within hours of one another, the majority of which concerned overdoses in and around one apartment complex.

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HUNTINGTON - Around 3:30 p.m. Monday, reports of overdoses started pouring into Cabell County 911 Dispatch. By 9 p.m., 26 overdoses had been reported, more than Cabell County EMS responds to in a week.

Cabell County EMS Director Gordon Merry said all the victims had been revived using naloxone; however, the heroin they had used was laced with a substance so strong, it sometimes took more than one dose of the opioid overdose-reversing drug to revive them.

"I know it will be too late when this is printed," Merry said, "but if you have heroin please see what is going on and don't use it. It could be your last time. People aren't familiar with what it is cut with and right now we don't know what it's been cut with."

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