SPECIAL REPORT: Bringing people back from the brink
YUMA, Ariz. (KYMA, KECY) - A medication that reverses an overdose recently became available over the counter.
Naloxone or as many know it as Narcan can be the difference between life and death, bringing people back from the brink.
“Just us by taking them out of distribution, it is a pill that will never come to my kid’s school, my community, to my church, to my neighborhood so those are lives saved, and Narcan similarity in the same vain is used to save lives,” stated DEA Special Agent in Charge for the Phoenix Field Division, Cheri Oz.
A local firefighter explains how narcan works.
“So narcan is a medication used to treat someone that has had an opioid overdose, what it does is it binds to the opioid receptors in our body and it reverses the effects of the overdose. It’s a simple push up the nostril” said Rodrigo Rodarte a San Luis Fire Department Fire Engineer Paramedic.
One of those Opioids is Fentanyl.
In 2022 Yuma County saw 38 drug related deaths, 16 of those fentanyl being a contributing factor. This year there have been 24 deaths with 14 of those fentanyl being a contributing factor.
The DEA has seen over 35 million pills in Arizona alone this year, 70 percent containing a lethal dose of fentanyl.
