It won’t take long for the Lakemont Volunteer Fire Company to be able to carry Naloxone.
“They just need to complete their required training, and once that’s done and they have the Naloxone, they have the ability to carry.”
The training only takes a few hours and authorities say treatment wouldn’t only be used on civilians.
“They would also have the ability to administer to their own personnel should they be exposed. Let’s say they go into a fire scene and there’s fentanyl in the residence they will have the ability to administer Narcan to those firefighters.”
Congressman John Joyce says he wants as many first responders to have access to Naloxone as possible.
“local fire departments are the front line to so many of these overdoses, and by giving them the ability to have Narcan in their tool-kit saves lives.”
“You never know where there’s going to be an overdose. You never know where there’s going to be an incident that you come upon, so having more people who have access to naloxone helps those who are in need.”
Joyce says first responders having Naloxone is a significant step to combating overdose deaths which he says is the leading cause of death in Americans ages 18 to 49.
