Firefighters Will Soon Carry Naloxone

Tuesday, 20 August 2019 at 07:37

With the opioid crisis, Naloxone has been used to save lives in Woodstock, and in the near future, The Woodstock Fire Fighters will be equipped with the life saving kits on their trucks.

WOODSTOCK - Starting this fall, Woodstock Firefighters will be trained on how to administer Naloxone.

Woodstock City Council granted permission from the Fire Department to start carrying Naloxone on their trucks. Fire Chief Jeff Slager explains why they wanted to have Naloxone kits.

"With respect to the concerns and the challenges the City of Woodstock is facing with opioids and the amounts that are found here, we are starting to see an increase in the types of calls we will respond to, they don't come in, necessarily as an opioid overdose, it might be an unconscious person or that kind of thing. So when our crews arrive, we want to have the option that, if it is identified at the scene that this is an opioid overdose, that we have a treatment available if we do happen to arrive before paramedics. Traditionally on medical responses, we weren't permitted to do anything below the skin."

Slager says the firefighters will start training on how to administer Naloxone in September.

"We wanted to make it available for our crews as well. We might go to a fire scene that is not medical related and they could become exposed to an opioid during the course of their normal activities, because we do provide medical care, we are not covered by the Good Samaritan Act, that allows anybody to do whatever they can, as long as you are not doing harm to an individual. So they weren't able to administer Naloxone to their co-worker in these cases without having this training and without having this program in place. So by having this approved by council, it allows us to remove this moral vs legal dilemma."

Naloxone is used to reverse the effects of an overdose and has already saved several lives in the Friendly City. As soon as the training is finished in September, the fire crews will have Naloxone kits available on their trucks and they will be able to utilize them right away.