A man lies motionless on the cold, wet pavement in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Outreach volunteers are crowded over him.

"Here we go. Here we go… Hey, you just overdosed," a member of Street Saviours can be heard saying as the drug user regains consciousness.

Scenes like this are all too familiar on the streets of Vancouver—a symptom of the overdose epidemic that has gripped British Columbia.

CTV News anchor Scott Hurst joined volunteers working on the front lines for a look at the human toll of this ever-worsening crisis.

"That guy was very tough to bring back," said Street Saviours founder Ryan Vena. "There could be a chance that he could have died, yeah."

So far, Vena estimates he's helped save more than 200 lives as part of Street Saviours, an organization that works to prevent overdoses on the Downtown Eastside, the epicentre of the crisis.

The sirens seem to blare constantly, a dizzying reality that serves as a constant reminder of the urgency of the situation.

Volunteers administer naloxone, a medication used to treat narcotic overdoses, and care for drug users in the immediate aftermath of an overdose.

Despite the best efforts of these kinds of groups, people keep dying at an alarming rate.

The BC Coroners Service reported 1,452 fatal overdoses related to illicit drugs last year—nearly three times the number deaths in 2015 and about four times the 2014 total.

Vena blames a drug supply that's now heavily tainted with fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that can be deadly even in minuscule doses to those unaware of its presence.

"Drugs aren't what they used to be. It's not safe. It's poison now," he said.

But if a dark, dirty alley in the Downtown Eastside is the only thing you think of when it comes to the opioid crisis, a new report on the demographics of those experiencing overdoses shows that's far from the truth.

According to the Coroners Service, only nine per cent of the 872 overdoses studied happened among homeless people. Almost nine out of 10 occurred indoors, 57 per cent of them in private residences.

"The drugs are so toxic that anybody could possibly be exposed," said Mark Lysyshyn, a medical health officer with Vancouver Coastal Health.

Deaths prompt calls for legalization

In 2017, illicit drugs killed an average of four people a day across B.C. And this year's numbers aren't far behind, prompting calls from major drug reform.

"As a society, we've decided to do that with alcohol and tobacco and we're moving towards doing that with cannabis," Lysyshyn said. "We could also do it with opioids."

Back in the Downtown Eastside, Street Saviours are on the scene of yet another overdose.

"Has anyone called 911?" a volunteer can be heard asking.

They manage to save another life, but many of the front-line workers say that without bold and dramatic levels of action from all levels of government, this deadly situation is unlikely to improve.

The BC Centre for Disease Control has developed a program that makes take-home naloxone kits available to residents. Additional information on how to get a kit and how to get trained to use it is available on the BCCDC website.

Other information about harm-reduction is also available online.

With files from CTV Vancouver's Scott Hurst