Recognizing an opioid overdose and knowing what to do to help save a life is not just for law enforcement officers and emergency responders.
The DeKalb Prevention Coalition is giving them and anyone else who wants to learn an opportunity to get the training needed to recognize and respond to an opioid overdose including administering Naloxone or Narcan to reverse the overdose.
The FREE training will be on Tuesday, December 19 in the History Room of the Mike Foster County Complex from 12-1pm. (Enter through the “Mike Foster” entrance to the building, turn to your right and the room is on the left). All attendees will receive FREE training in the use of Naloxone and a free Naloxone rescue kit (if available). This is open to anyone who wants to attend. The instructors will be Suzanne and Tommy Angel, Regional Overdose Prevention Specialists. Please call or email to reserve your seat.
Naloxone is a safe nasal spray medication that reverses opioid overdoses caused by narcotics like codeine, morphine, fentanyl, and heroin. This training can save the life of a loved one, friend, co-worker, neighbor or anyone using prescription painkillers or heroin who are found to be unconscious, unresponsive, possibly with blue lips and blue finger nails, and there could be signs of drug use around them such as needles or empty pill bottles.
Lisa Cripps, who is the Coordinator of the DeKalb Prevention Coalition, said this training would be helpful to anyone, especially people who have regular contact with the public.
“With the introduction of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid pain reliever that is 50 times more powerful than heroin with a fatal dose only being the size of a few grains of sand, we are thankful to offer our community a training with the medication called “Naloxone”, which is extremely affective medication that can stop opioid overdoses and can actually save lives,” she said.
“We already have our law enforcement trained and some of our first responders and now we want to offer that to the community. You might ask “who should get Naloxone training and have Naloxone on hand”? Certainly people who have overdosed before; people who are injecting drug users; pain patients; family or friends who are associated with active users; business workers who frequent homes to do work such as electricians, cable tv workers etc.; any first responders to wrecks, house fires, rescue workers, etc; and simply just if you want to be safe and have that Naloxone with you in case you need it at any point in time,” said Cripps.
If you are interested in attending this training please leave a message by contacting Lisa Cripps, Prevention Coordinator, at 615-580-9290 (text or voice message) or send a message to the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/DeKalbPreventionCoalition to reserve your seat. You may also send an email at dekalbtnprevention@gmail.com.
“Remember there is always hope for recovery for someone living but certainly not someone dead. Naloxone can save lives,” said Cripps.
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