Woodbridge Police Have Saved Three Lives With Narcan

Woodbridge Police Officer Christopher McClay underwent training in the use of Narcan - an antidote to opiate overdoses -- on the afternoon of Jan. 21.

Two hours later, he used that nasal spray to save a young woman’s life.

Four days later, he used it again, to revive another young man who was found unconscious in a car in the Iselin section of town.

And four days after that, another Woodbridge officer, Emil Jagiello, used Narcan to save another young man at a local motel.

This afternoon, state Senator Joseph Vitale said he planned to meet with McClay, Woodbridge Mayor John E. McCormac and Police Director Robert Hubner, to discuss the use of Narcan, as well as the comprehensive legislation package he has proposed to address the addiction crisis in the state.

Vitale said he began writing the legislation about a year and a half ago, to address every aspect of the addiction issue: education, prevention, treatment and recovery.

“You can’t do one without the other,’’ he said. “It’s a comprehensive approach to the entire issue. You have to have all those elements at once for it to make an impact.”

Three of the bills have already been signed into law, others are awaiting the governor’s signature, and others are pending a vote.

Vitale said 70 percent of all young people who develop an addiction to prescription drugs found their first pill in their family’s medicine cabinet.

They become hooked on pills, then graduate to heroin, which is often cheaper and easier to access.

“It’s awful,’’ he said.

Police in Ocean and Monmouth counties were the first to carry Narcan - a nasal spray that counteracts the effects of opiates.

After success in those counties, police departments in other communities across the state began to purchase the spray for their officers to carry on patrol.

Woodbridge’s Hubner, who spent years overseeing the narcotics unit in his department, said the Middlesex County Association of Chiefs of Police, with the help of the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office, quickly decided to move forward with a Narcan program.

Woodbridge police bought Narcan with grant money. Several of the township’s officers are trained EMTs, so they were sent to train-the-trainer classes, then began training of the rest of the patrol units in January, said Hubner. Each patrol officer now carries a Narcan kit.

McCormac said police in his town are carrying those kits because they have a responsibility to protect the public.

“It’s no different than giving CPR,’’ he said. “If someone’s life can be saved, then we have a responsibility to save it.”

He was among the elected officials and law enforcement officers who attended a League of Municipalities seminar Wednesday to discuss the drug epidemic in the state.

“It’s a huge problem, and it’s everywhere,’’ McCormac said. “Nobody can say it’s not in my town. ...We can’t put our head in the sand and say we don’t have these issues, because we do.”