An inmate at the Cumberland County Jail suffered a drug overdose but police officers revived her with the overdose-reversing drug Narcan on Wednesday afternoon at the Cumberland County Courthouse in Portland, according to a release by the county sheriff’s office.

Kayla Brooks, 26, of Kennebunk started showing signs of an overdose while detained in a holding cell at the courthouse around 1:30 p.m.

Capt. Steve Butts Jr., administrator in charge of operations at the jail, said Brooks had been taken to the courthouse for an initial court appearance on a charge of failure to appear.

Butts said courthouse security immediately contacted the Portland Police Department. Officers administered Narcan, or naloxone, which is used to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.

Butts said that Brooks was transported by ambulance to Maine Medical Center where she was treated and released. He did not know what type of drug Brooks used or how she smuggled it from the jail to the courthouse.

Brooks was being held at the county jail Wednesday night on $750 cash bail. She had been taken into custody on Tuesday on a warrant charging her with failure to appear, Butts said.

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Drug smuggling at the jail is hard to detect and becoming more common, said Butts, who has worked in jail systems for more than 20 years.

“As long as people have body parts, they can insert just about anything into a body part,” he said. Inmates refer to the drug inserts as “plugs.”

In April, an inmate at the jail, Danyielle Banks, 43, of Biddeford, started to show signs of an overdose while sitting at a table in the pod day room of the jail housing unit. Jail medical staff treated her with Narcan and she survived.

The Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office is investigating Wednesday’s incident at the courthouse.

Dennis Hoey can be contacted at 791-6365 or at:

dhoey@pressherald.com


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