SFPD Saves 17 Lives With Overdose Prevention Drug

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — San Francisco officers have saved the lives of 17 people this year using a drug that can reverse a heroin or opiate overdose, police said Wednesday.

Since 2015 the police department has provided the drug Naloxone, also known as Narcan, to officers in a partnership with the Department of Public Health and the Harm Reduction Coalition's Drug Overdose Prevention and Education project.

Naloxone acts as an emergency antidote to opiates including heroin and prescription painkillers, and can reverse an overdose if it is administered soon enough.

Officers are trained in how to administer Narcan, which comes in a nasal spray, and in how to recognize opioid overdoses. Since the beginning of this year alone, police have used Narcan kits 17 times to save the lives of individuals suffering from an overdose, police said.

"The Narcan kits have become an extremely useful tool in helping officers as first responders and in safeguarding lives," the department said in a statement Wednesday.

"Prompt screening and assignment of 9-1-1 calls by Department of Emergency Management dispatchers and early intervention by SFPD officers equipped with Narcan kits, combined with skilled care and transport by
paramedics to an emergency room all increase the chances of survival for an overdose victim," the statement said.

— Bay City News; Image by Renee Schiavone, Patch

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