He had been sober 5 years. Then police found him unresponsive in his driveway.

The 40-year-old cook and construction worker had been clean and sober for five years. Then his girlfriend heard a thud come from the bathroom Saturday night.

The sound marked his third overdose in less than a month after a recent relapse.

The first time, his lifeless body was found lying over the bumper of a work van outside his Myrtle Beach home on Foxcroft Lane. He was revived with Narcan, a drug used to reverse opioid overdoses. He admitted to police he had used heroin.

One week later, police returned to find him lying on a bathroom floor. Narcan was needed again.

Less than two weeks later, the police were back.

His girlfriend told officers she had signed him up for rehab and he was scheduled to go on Monday when 9 p.m. rolled around on Saturday and he told her he was going to the store. She noticed he was gone longer than expected and called to see where he was, she told police.

Long lines at the store had held him up, he told her. Fifteen minutes later, he returned home and after a brief conversation, went to the bathroom, according to a Myrtle Beach police incident report.

Then the woman said she heard a thud and found him unresponsive on the floor. She saw a spoon and a needle nearby and called 911.

At the hospital, police say the man confessed he didn’t go to the store, but went to buy heroin. He returned home, went to the bathroom and shot up. The next thing he remembered was seeing the faces of medics and his girlfriend over him, he told police.

This unnamed victim of addiction wasn’t alone last month.

Days earlier, in a room at a resort four miles away, a child was placed in emergency custody when police found the child’s mother high on drugs.

Officers responded to the Blu Atlantic Resort for complaints of a marijuana odor coming from a room on the third floor around 10 a.m. March 15. Police said it took 41-year-old Amber Marie Muirhead a while to come to the door and when she did her speech was slurred.

Officers noticed two needles and wax paper slips containing heroin on a coffee table, according to an incident report. One of the needles appeared to have been recently used, an officer noted.

Two more bags of heroin, six prescription pain pills, a scale, needles, pipes, spoons and other paraphernalia were seized from the room.

Muirhead and Christine Catherine Giurco, 34, were each charged with possessing a narcotic and possessing heroin with the means to distribute.

Myrtle Beach police responded to at least 13 overdose calls in the month of March, according to incident reports. In at least one of those suspected overdose cases, the user – a 31-year-old woman – didn’t make it.

The victims of heroin, fentanyl and opioids run the gamut of race, sex, economic status and age. The drugs led to at least 17 overdoses in January and seven in February. A majority of the overdoses reported in the city last month were among middle-aged white men and women.

Here are cases taken from Myrtle Beach incident reports in March:　

March 1, 2017 – Police responded to a collision at the corner of Mr. Joe White Avenue and Oak Street around 10 a.m. Thirty-four-year-old Noah Aaron Morgan was unresponsive behind the wheel of a red, 2008 Chevy truck. Police put the truck in park and took the keys out of the ignition. Officers found "numerous slips, needles and a spoon" inside the truck, but they struggled to find a pulse in Morgan’s neck as they tried to rouse him. He was revived with Narcan. Another driver told police Morgan was traveling behind him "swerving all over the road," before he ran into the back of his vehicle and struck a bucket truck on Oak Street, which contained a city employee who was working on a traffic light. Morgan was charged with driving under the influence.

March 1, 2017 – Police responded to the Big Lots parking lot at 1370 S. Kings Hwy., shortly before 1 p.m. for a drug overdose. A 65-year-old man was given Narcan and transported to a local hospital. A 38-year-old woman, who was with the man, said she had gone into the store and returned to find him unconscious. She told police she wasn’t sure when he last used drugs.

March 3, 2017 – Police responded to the Fountainbleu Inn at 701 Flagg St. at 1:45 p.m. for an "unresponsive male in the front seat of a pickup truck." Police found a 27-year-old man passed out in the driver’s seat of a green Nissan truck. "The offender had track marks on the backs of his hands and fresh blood on the back of his right hand," an officer noted in the report. Two needles lied on the passenger seat beside him. The keys were in the truck’s ignition switch and the transmission gear was in drive, but the truck wasn’t running. Medics were able to wake the man without Narcan, but he refused further treatment. Cpl. J. Amos provided the man with information on the 15th Circuit Heroin Coalition and where to find help for opioid addictions.

March 6, 2017 – Police responded to an apartment in the 600 block of North Kings Highway for a possible overdose and found an unresponsive man, who was still breathing around 12:30 a.m. The 26-year-old man was treated by EMS and taken to the hospital. A woman told police the man had snorted a line of fentanyl with a rolled-up dollar bill.

March 7, 2017 – Police responded to an apartment on Little River Road to find a 24-year-old man lying unresponsive on the floor of the home’s living room around 1:30 a.m. A friend was giving him CPR. Narcan revived the man once medics arrived to administer the drug. The friend told police that he knew the man used pills in the past, but was not aware of him ever using heroin. There were no signs of heroin use in the apartment’s living room or bathroom, officers noted.

March 9, 2017 – Police responded to the White Sands Hotel at 708 N. Kings Hwy. for an overdose at 6:15 a.m. A 31-year-old woman was being loaded into the back of an ambulance when officers arrived. Medics told police they had to use Narcan to revive the woman. The woman told police she did "half a bag of heroin" that she got off the streets from an "unknown man." The woman’s boyfriend told police she seemed fine when she came in the room and laid down next to him, but then she stopped moving and he couldn’t wake her up. He called 911.

March 12, 2017 – Police were called to the Sandlapper Car Wash at 504 13th Ave. S. around 9 a.m. for a narcotics complaint. Police found 34-year-old Kelly Jo Veazey with a syringe in her arm in the driver’s seat of a car in one of the bays. Officers seized the needle and two pink plastic bags containing heroin from the car and found two empty bags with limited residue on the ground beside the driver’s door. Veazey was arrested and charged with possession of heroin.

March 14, 2017 – Police responded to a home on Foxcroft Lane at 5 p.m. A cook who also works in construction, was found lifeless, lying over the back bumper of a work van in his driveway. Medics arrived a minute later and gave him Narcan. Police learned he had overdosed on heroin in a follow-up at the hospital. Officers advised the man where he could get help with his addiction, according to the report.

March 18, 2017 – Minutes before midnight, an officer was flagged down for an overdose in a room at the Aquarius motel at 204 Mr. Joe White Ave. Twenty-nine-year-old Tara Ashley Danielle Olalde-Zuniga was lying on a bed inside the room, "unresponsive and gasping for air." Medics arrived and revived the woman with Narcan. She told police this was the second time she had overdosed and that she had used one slip of heroin. Olalde-Zuniga refused to go to the hospital. She was cited for lying to police about her identity.

March 21, 2017 – One week after police responded to an overdose at a home on Foxcroft Lane, they were called back to the house for another overdose around 10:30 p.m. The 40-year-old man was found lying on a bathroom floor. Medics used Narcan to wake him up. A needle containing a brown liquid was found in a bathroom cabinet. The liquid tested negative for heroin.

March 25, 2017 – Police were called to a room at the Super 8 Motel off U.S. 17 Bypass for a drug overdose around 8:50 a.m. Medics were conducting CPR when officers arrived. Thirty-one-year-old Nicolette Pasley Lovelace was declared deceased at 9:15 a.m. Lovelace’s roommate told police she found her unconscious at 8:40 a.m. The death remains under investigation.

March 25, 2017 – Police were called to Withers Swash Park for a drug overdose around 3 p.m. A 35-year-old woman was being treated by medics when officers arrived. Officers asked her if she had any drugs or needles. She told police she had thrown the needle away, according to the report.

March 31, 2017 – Police responded to an apartment on Cedar Street for a heroin overdose around 10 a.m. A woman told police that her boyfriend used to use heroin and that she thought he had stopped. But she woke up to find him not breathing. His skin was blue. An empty needle lied nearby. The woman called 911 and gave her boyfriend CPR until medics arrived. The CPR and oxygen helped revive the 29-year-old man. He was taken to the hospital for further treatment.

April 1, 2017 – Police were called to a home on Foxcroft Lane for a drug overdose around 9:30 p.m. Medics were loading the 40-year-old man into an ambulance when officers arrived. A woman at the home told police he is a recovering addict, who had been sober for five years until a recent relapse. She was able to schedule him for rehab on Monday, but at 9 p.m. Saturday he said he had to go to the store. She noticed he was gone longer than expected and called to see where he was. Long lines at the store had held him up, he told her. Fifteen minutes later, he returned home and after a brief conversation, went to the bathroom, she told police. Then she heard a thud and found him unresponsive on the floor. A spoon and a needle were found nearby. She called 911. This was his third reported overdose in less than a month. At the hospital, police say the man confessed he didn’t go to the store, but went to buy heroin. He returned home, went to the bathroom and shot up. The next thing he remembered was seeing the faces of medics and his girlfriend over him, he told police.

This story was originally published April 2, 2017 at 1:27 PM with the headline "He had been sober 5 years. Then police found him unresponsive in his driveway.."