News 12 is exploring concerns inside a state prison in Sullivan County where staff have mysteriously been getting sick for the past two weeks - and has learned that lifesaving treatment was needed in several cases.

Following a series of tips from sources inside Woodbourne Correctional Facility, the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision confirms that a total of eight correction officers have been sickened with similar complaints of nausea, dizziness and, in at least two of the incidents, seizure-like symptoms - since late-January.

“They are collapsing. They’re falling down. Some are having seizures,” says a Woodbourne correction officer who spoke to News 12 under the condition of anonymity.

He and other sources tell News 12 staff are getting sick by fentanyl, synthetic drugs and other substances, including wasp spray and rat poisoning, that prisoners are smoking and obtaining through the mail and by visitors.

“We just had an officer [receive] Narcan four times and another officer fall out and choke on his own vomit,” says the correction officer.

The officer says in some cases, the drug-like substances are liquified and dipped onto papers then dried and disguised as mail for incarcerated individuals.

State officials say incoming prison mail is routinely checked for contraband and that the contents of letters, except for legal mail, are photocopied before they’re given to incarcerated individuals. They say K-9s have been deployed to the prison. In one instance, officials say there was a positive indication from a K-9, but no physical contraband has been found.

“It’s not just officers, CO’s. You’re talking about civilian staff, nurses; people in the medical field,” says New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association communications director Jim Miller.

Miller says prison staff statewide have reported similar symptoms from suspected inmate drug use for years but that there’s been a recent spike in complaints and in some cases, loss of consciousness, at a number of state correctional facilities.

He says NYSCOPBA believes the cause to be drugs and other substances that are being smuggled in and used by prisoners.

In each reported case at Woodbourne, DOCCS says staff were treated and released from the hospital. All but one officer has returned for duty.

The incidents have critics debating whether the reports could be to deflect from recent backlash following the correction officer-involved death of an inmate upstate or possibly psychological because of stress.

People News 12 interviewed, however, disagree.

“When you have people that become unresponsive and you have to utilize Narcan, Miller says, “that’s not anxiety driven.”

DOCCS says 16 prisoners at Woodbourne Correctional Facility have also received emergency care in the last two weeks for a variety of symptoms – including apparent overdoses.

The incidents remain under investigation.