Crime & Safety
Parents, Friend Knew What to Do When Young Woman OD'd
Two shots of an antidote to opiate overdose, administered before paramedics arrive, restore 21-year-old woman's life.
A young Brookfield woman was saved from a likely fatal heroin overdose because someone in her home – either her parents or the friend who was staying over with her – apparently knew she was an addict and was prepared to give her another drug that counteracts the illegal narcotic.
At 4:09 a.m. July 19, residents of the 18800 block of Baythorn Way called 911 to say their 21-year-old daughter was unconscious and turning blue on the bathroom floor after an apparent heroin overdose, and they feared she was in respiratory and cardiac arrest and near death.
But even before paramedics arrived, the parents and a 22-year-old friend of the victim who had been with her administered two shots of Narcan, an antidote to opiate overdose, and the young woman’s breathing resumed, albeit very shallowly.
She was examined by paramedics and taken to Elmbrook Memorial Hospital.
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Sign up for the Brookfield Patch NewsletterNarcan is a trade name for naloxone, which counteracts the effects of opiates on the neurological system and restores respiratory function when opiates suppress it.
The police report did not say whether it was the young woman's parents or her friend who was equipped with the antidote, or why. Increasingly, drug addicts, those who associate with them and those close to them who are aware of the addiction are acquiring naloxone to keep on hand for such emergencies.
Police are saying an epidemic of heroin use, overdoses and deaths in the suburbs have made users aware that they should be equipped with naloxone against the possibility of a fatal overdose.
Paramedic units now also carry naloxone as part of their medical kit with the increasing number of heroin and other opiate narcotic overdoses being reported.
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