Mass. Police, Firefighters Increasingly being Armed with Narcan

Nov. 16--The scene plays out time and again.

Someone is passed out on a bathroom floor, a car seat, a parking lot's asphalt. The person is blue-lipped, fingertips the same color, and barely breathing.

Another opiate addict has overdosed.

The readiness of first-responders to handle the situation can be the determining factor between life and death. So as the region battles a drug epidemic that saw Essex County overdoses for the year rise to 120 fatalities last week, an increasing number of police and fire departments are arming their forces with nasal Narcan, a lifesaving drug that reverses the effects of heroin and other opiate overdoses.

"IV drug users are probably the ones we've seen the most," Methuen Police Sgt. Michael Havey said at a training class Wednesday.

Methuen is the latest police department in the area to introduce Narcan, the brand name for the drug naloxone. The city's 83 officers, who often are the first to arrive at the scene, now carry Narcan along with a first-aid kit and a heart defibrillator to medical aid calls.

Chief Joseph Solomon stressed that a main mission of law enforcement is to save lives.

"Narcan in the hands of trained first-responders expands our ability to serve the public and save lives," Solomon said.

In January, 70 Andover firefighters were trained to use Narcan. That training already has been put to use two dozen times this year.

"It's everywhere," said Andover police Chief Michael Mansfield of opioid addiction.

The training in Andover gave firefighters a jump-start for late March, when Gov. Deval Patrick declared heroin and other opium-based drugs a public health emergency in Massachusetts.

Patrick released a multi-pronged plan to combat soaring overdose incidents across the state. First-responders -- that is, police and firefighters -- could administer Narcan under his plan. Prior to that, only paramedics and physicians could do so.

In Andover, overdose victims are not necessarily people who live or work in town, though experts agree that drug addiction knows no social or economic boundaries.

"We've seen a lot of transient activity," Mansfield said.

They've responded to people overdosing in fast-food restaurants, parking lots and even behind the wheel at the scene of a car crash.

Narcan works, Mansfield assured.

"We've saved many lives as a result of our ability to administer Narcan," he said.

Haverhill Mayor James Fiorentini said police officers in his city are trained to use Narcan and will soon start carrying it, too.

Across the border in Southern New Hampshire, overdoses are on a sharp rise, too. Sixty-five overdose deaths have been confirmed in Rockingham County this year, and another 70 cases still are pending.

For now, only trained ambulance workers can administer Narcan in New Hampshire, but there is discussion about extending the law to allow police officers to carry it, too, Gov. Maggie Hassan recently said.

At the Narcan training session in Methuen, police officers learned how to administer 2-milligram nasal doses of the drug. When a person is overdosing, he or she can be given 1 milligram in each nostril, which is sprayed in a fine mist through a special atomizer.

Police officers were shown how to assemble the atomizer and load the Narcan dose. They were told always to wear latex protective gloves when administering the drug, which starts working within three to five minutes and reaches peak effect at 12 to 20 minutes.

Officers also learned how to recognize the signs of an opiate overdose in an elderly patient who inadvertently may have taken too much medication, or a child who accidentally ingested a prescription painkiller like OxyContin, Percocet, Fentanyl or Codeine.

Narcan only helps a person suffering from an overdose of heroin or another opiate.

"You have to differentiate between the guy who had a heart attack and the guy who had an overdose," Havey explained.

As Narcan reverses the effects of the overdose, a person may become nauseous, have cardiac disturbances and become irritable or violent.

The person may "wake up with a wicked headache," Havey said.

The officer should then strongly urge the person to go by ambulance to the hospital for further treatment.

"We want them to go to the hospital. I can't stress that enough," Havey said. "This is a temporary treatment to get them breathing again."

Methuen City Councilor Sean Fountain knows the value of Narcan training and use all too well.

As a full-time North Andover firefighter, Fountain is trained to use Narcan.

"Obviously, there is a major, major heroin epidemic going on in the Merrimack Valley. There's a steady supply of heroin here," Fountain said.

On Halloween night, he was riding along with Methuen Police Chief Joseph Solomon. That night alone, three overdoses in Methuen were reported in a 20-minute span.

Fountain and Solomon responded to one of the overdoses and found a young woman with bluish lips unresponsive in the passenger seat of a car in a restaurant parking lot off Broadway.

Fountain praised Solomon for taking a proactive, progressive approach to the overdose issue and getting the city's Police Department trained to use Narcan.

"When you see Narcan work, it's amazing. It's really a miracle drug," Fountain said.

Follow staff reporter Jill Harmacinski on Twitter @EagleTribJill.

Copyright 2014 - The Eagle-Tribune, North Andover, Mass.