West Bloomfield schools now carrying Narcan for overdoses

WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. (WJBK) - "Twenty-five years ago when you overdosed, you died - and now we have something," said Lisa Graff, assistant principal, Abbott Middle School.

That something is Narcan, the antidote for someone overdosing on opioids.  West Bloomfield schools are the first in the county to train administrators on how to use it to stop someone from dying when they've had too much. 

"We do tornado drills, we do fire drills, we have active intruder drill," Graff said. "So this is just another tool in my toolbox to be affective not just in the school but really the community." 

Macomb County Sheriff’s Department just released a lip sync challenge this month featuring real life cases of people who have OD'd.  

"It's a quick puff in the nose and hopefully it will work," she said.

It did in the cases shown during the sheriff's lip sync video.  Lives saved, one squeeze of Narcan at a time.  

"It's terrifying. I didn't expect it, I was just going out to lunch and then I got this scenario where I'm on the phone with 911 and trying to figure out what is going on with this person and it turned out it was an actual overdose with heroin," said Julie Brenner, Alliance of Coalitions for Healthy Communities. "Not just kids, it's the parents, the administration, it's everyone that could possibly be impacted by an overdose in any shape or form.

"So it's really important to have prevention from a foundational standpoint, where everybody is getting the same information on how to react in the appropriate ways." 

West Bloomfield's deputy fire Marshall Dave Deboer who is a paramedic, knows all too well how to do it.  

"It bonds to your cells in the same places that the narcotic bonds to yourselves," he said. "So when you think about how it's working, it's blocking that drug from going in and having an effect. Just by pushing this drug, we can stop the effect and slow down for a period of time."

Deboer commends the West Bloomfield schools for being proactive instead of reactive.  

"Why wait until it happens. I think they're smart enough to say we want to prevent this or handle it if it does happen," he said. "They're a very proactive school district and our department is glad to partner with them."

If someone wants training on Narcan here's is how they can get it.: http://achcmi.org/