Wisc. Police Start Training Officers to Carry Anti-Overdose Drug Naloxone
July 20--Madison police have started training officers to use the anti-overdose medication naloxone as part of a new program that aims to equip every sworn member of the department with the drug officials say has saved hundreds of lives.
One of them, Officer Daniel Perez, was able to put his training to use Friday and save the life of a Sun Prairie man who overdosed on heroin.
Perez had just completed a training session on how to use naloxone, a drug that reverses opiate overdose symptoms, when he responded to a report of an unconscious man in a car at a North Side parking lot, the Madison Police Department said.
Perez recognized the signs of a likely opiate overdose -- "ineffective breathing, unconsciousness and indications of recent opiate use," said department spokesman Officer David Dexheimer -- and administered naloxone using the auto-injector he'd just received.
Perez's quick action successfully countered the overdose and potentially saved the man's life, Dexheimer said.
The man was taken by paramedics to a local hospital for further treatment, then cited for possession of heroin and drug paraphernalia, the department said.
The MPD received 600 doses of naloxone, often referred to by the brand name Narcan, earlier this year in a donation from the pharmaceutical company Kaleo, Officer Carrie Hemming said. That's more than enough doses to equip each of the department's roughly 450 sworn personnel, from patrol cops to the chief.
On July 13, police started giving officers a 45-minute training on how to use Kaleo's medication Evzio, which administers a potentially life-saving dose of naloxone through an auto-injector.
The department will have the vast majority of patrol officers trained in how to use the drug by the end of the month, Hemming said.
Madison police sergeants started carrying naloxone last fall and have used it multiple times to treat people overdosing on opiates.
The medication works in seconds to reverse the effects of heroin or prescription opiates such as oxycodone, stopping overdoses.
As the problem of opiate abuse spread across Wisconsin, public health and law enforcement officials, as well as state legislators, have pushed to expand access to naloxone. Their goal has been to get the drug into the hands of more first responders to overdoses, such as police officers, firefighters and friends or family members of opiate users.
When the number of fatal overdoses in Dane County last year fell by more than 30 percent compared to the year before, reversing years of increases, experts credited naloxone.
Hemming, an EMT and licensed practical nurse, will lead the naloxone training along with MPD Officer Matt Kenny, the 12-year department veteran who fatally shot 19-year-old Tony Robinson in March. Cleared of criminal charges or department discipline after the shooting, MPD officials have assigned Kenny, a former Coast Guard medic, to work in training.
Hemming said the department is grateful for the Evzio doses, though she noted they were made in a one-time donation.
MPD will track how frequently officers use the medication, Hemming said, and use that data to determine if police need city funding for a permanent naloxone program.
Costs for the medication have been rising -- Hemming said she could not disclose the value of the Evzio kits MPD received, but according to reports from Vice News and MedPage Today its retail price ranges from $400-700. Other forms of naloxone run about $50 per kit, officials have said, but used to cost half as much.
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