EPD Respond to Overdosing Man; Revive Him With Narcan
Narcan Kits EPD Officers are now carrying. [Photo from the Eureka Police]
On March 8th, 2019 at approximately 5:18 am, officers of the Eureka Police Department were dispatched to a business at the 400 block of N Street for a “man down” at this location. The reporting party described the male subject’s condition as laying on the ground and being unresponsive.
Upon the officers arrival, they located a unresponsive male subject, who’s breathing was shallow and pulse was faint. Due to the totality of the circumstances, officers believed that the subject was suffering a medical emergency resulting from opioid use. The officers immediately administered Narcan to the subject. By the time emergency medical personnel arrived on scene, the male’s breathing had greatly improved, his pulse rate had strengthened, and he was responsive.
The male was ultimately transported by City Ambulance staff to the St. Joseph Hospital emergency room for further treatment.
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Glad they were able to revive them. If people can get past the “undeserving scumbag” thoughts, they will be able to grasp that this is somebody’s child/parent/loved one.
Which does not mean they aren’t a scumbag. The idea that someone has relatives who might be sad over their loss means that they are excused from being called what they are is a very strange one. Used to be that the exact opposite was thought just a generation ago. That a family considered their black sheep relatives to be shaming them by poor behavior and would certainly be harder on them than the general public.
It will be interesting to see what the effect of readily available life saving treatment will be. Will a person so saved from their own behavior be scared enough to change it or will they think it is now safer to engage in it? One thing for sure is that there will soon be a lawsuit that the police could have saved someone if they had only arrived without delay.
Oh, “Guest.” Well, you probably have people who care about you, whether or not you have compassion. Other people might read what you express above and think that you’re the scumbag.
Addiction is a disease that in itself harms only the addict. The condition or behavior that makes someone a “scumbag,” which are usually homelessness, hunger, poverty and some form of theft, are symptoms, not the core problem.
Other cultures, which recognize addiction as a disease and attendant homelessness, theft and hunger as symptoms, and respond by providing food, shelter, and substitute nonaddictive substances to address the disease, enjoy much lower levels of common street crime…And lower levels of addiction.
And still other cultures recognize that the person who lives in such extreme greed and acquisitiveness that a person hoards material wealth while others go hungry and homeless has an extreme form of mental illness.
Consider where you exist on that spectrum, and how your own comments define you.
I agree.
Onlooker,only harms the victim? How about all the people that get ripped off while they are looking to get their next fix to “get healthy “. Your reasoning is really flawed…just stating the obvious!
Not every drug addict steals. If the problem is theft, then we have laws on the books for theft.
Rarely enforced, Kym. As a family member of a drug addict, my reaction to the headline was “Is it society’s obligation to revive those who ingest illicit substances?” I’m not speaking of it being “illegal”. At what cost – emotional, spiritual, physical, financial – should drug addicts be saved from themselves? At what cost should Family be spared? Neighbors, Community? Society as a whole?
I’m not suggesting that first responders be asked to make these decisions. But ultimately, we need to recognize that each of us is responsible for our own destiny by the choices we make.
Yes, it’s tough out there. It’s also just as tough at home.
They don’t all get saved. If that makes you feel any better.
exactly, the last thing I stole was an 8-track at woolworths which was years before I was addicted to anything but arrogance. some, maybe more than some maintain jobs.
It is dangerous slope to decide who is ‘worthy’ of care. What’s next, executing the mentally and physically disabled because they are a ‘burden’ on society? That’s been done before but I thought the question was settled at a place called Nuremberg.
Public safety officers have a duty to treat everyone as equally deserving of help and compassion.
Huge thanks to the EPD for saving lives.
Road,
thanks.
We should still have a choice in what our tax money goes towards. I don’t want to pay to save junkies.
Just give EPD the needle deposit box while they are at it, spray narcan and collect the old needles before they go. They could also show up a lil early so people can shoot up in their squad car so if they overdose they know that Nacan Man is right there to save them. Put a sign on all squad cars that says FLAG ME DOWN, SHOOT SPAY DEPOSIT.
Frickin rediculous, if this falls n anyone’s dept it should be the ambulance not the police
This is the typical picking and choosing where to dump insult and condemnation. This person who overdosed is not identified. He/she may or may not be a scumbag- no one except maybe those having personal knowledge knows if then. So I never said he was a scumbag. It might be a suicide attempt. It might be a young person given something they didn’t understand. However it might be a terrible human who has done much harm to innocent people. The idea that no one can call a scumbag a scumbag because it might upset someone else what my post said and to insist on that idea is right is ridiculous posturing.
The first posting is an attempt to spread guilt with a bulldozer when they haven’t a clue either. Before anyone has said anything at all. Simply because they think it is safe . They have had the internet stamp of approval and don’t have to think again. No one will bother to hold back their own nastiness to attack a poster personally for simply saying that it’s an irrational idea. So sure are they about their own self righteousness that they are eager to let their inner troll free to roam.
Too bad. So sad. But it is the essence of the internet and news in general that many people who post do not think about their own ugliness when rushing to align themselves with whatever looks good. It is mob thinking at its finest that makes them such tools. In fact while here is much personal insult left standing because it is in a good cause- even if the cause is only their own misunderstanding- as if being ugly ever is made acceptable that way.
So while some of you think it is fine to make personal insults towards me, I will return with a remark that such thinking is why complex issues just don’t get better. Not because nothing can be done but because so many are so unwilling to think, really think, before they stand in the way of those who can do something. All in the name of substituting feelings for thinking. Which is exactly what was what so many of you would inevitably do.
yes, more thinkey, less feeley…need more critical thinkers instead of fickle feelers
Right on, onlooker…
Haters gonna hate.
Junkies gonna junk
Stupid going to stupid…
choices
Onlooker, what do you have to say about the numerous families and children who are displaced and people who are murdered by Mexican and South American drug cartels that produce the drugs that the addict uses? Its been said many times on Kym’s website about many substances that if there wasn’t a demand, there wouldn’t be a supply. So how does addiction only harm the addict when there is a myriad of destruction and human suffering left in the drugs wake just to produce and get them to the market where they are consumed by the addict? Not to mention all the petty crime and the drain on the addict, the addict’s family, and the addict’s friends once those drugs get here? Besides, the addict chooses to use the drug the first time before they are addicted. Nobody chooses to get a brain tumor which is an actual disease, unlike addiction.
So, I can completely understand how somebody who is uneducated about substance use disorder can say such mean spirited things. Substance use disorder is a chronically relapsing brain disease. People with substance use disorder do not want to be like this. What normal brain would tell you it’s OK to take a needle out of somebody’s arm after you see them overdose and stick it in their own to finish the dose?This is not normal behavior, it is a diseased brain that makes you behave this way. They continue to use because their brain tells them that they cannot live without this drug. Statistically 3/4 of all heroin users start using by taking prescription drugs given to them by their doctors. This is a family disease, It is not just the person struggling who is affected. Families are torn apart with grief and stress worry and spend thousands of dollars trying to help their loved one. Scum bag is a term used by people who are frightened, uneducated, and unwilling to learn. It’s usually these people who have a change of heart when it is their child or loved one who is on the table with the tube breathing for them. Hopefully this will not be you. Becoming educated and trying to make a difference even if that means just learning proper terminology would be a big start.
No one said anything mean spirited except for those leaping to insult in defense of the virtue of someone they clearly don’t know but identify with. The old “but for the grace of God” idea that never once fixed any problem from small things like a flat tire to massive complex issues like mental illness. The same people whose empathy turns to hate the minute they run into a person higher on the victim list who has been hurt by their former darlings of empathy. It’s not that they restrain themselves from judgement but that their judgement is so flawed and useless. This was clearly what was going to happen in the Never Neverland of the politics of empathy. But sometimes I’m so disgusted that I go there anyway.
Sunbstance use disporder… Geroge carlin would have a field day with you… How many senior citizens with ptsd have a substance use disorder.. Its called addiction because some.sunstances are addictive
So thwy are an addict. A drug addict
Its ok to call it what it is
Wrong! It is a CHOICE. They CHOSE to do the drug. They CHOOSE to keep doing the drug knowing that it is wrong. Disease is something that happens to your body without a person CHOOSING that disease. Addiction is a CHOICE that they made not a disease that they had no CHOICE in the matter.
Thankyou
It’s NOT Hard to get addicted to Opiates at all all it takes is a prescription for legal use for a while then hen the script runs out & your craving the drug doesn’t…!!!
Except for the millions of people for whomnthat is not true. Not to mention the 3/4 of addicts who never got a prescription before they started using the drugs.
And?
Dan F that’s a b.s. statement I recently had a bout of cancer and was taking 90 milligrams of morphine a day…had no problem quitting. Took it for 8 months…
Why some people get addicted and some don’t is a complicated mix of factors, including but not limited to genetics, environment, development. You might be one of the lucky ones that way. I think I am. But others aren’t.
You probably got cancer because of a similar mix of factors while other people didn’t.
It was Hodgkin’s lymphoma don’t know what caused it. Been in remission over a year as of January!
Wahoo! May the health continue!
I had no problem either, I was taking the 30s everyday for 6 month, I didn’t like the dehydration. that was just 2 years ago. I was using most drugs except heroin for 30 years and was able to quit all of them when every I felt the need in a day. although nicotine took 6 years. I hear you can’t quit heroin, even though some do, therefore I didn’t risk it. but i’m not some homeless dude that literally has nothing, if I was, I would most likely use heroin because it does in fact make all your problem go away (from what I read and heroin users tell me). I have lost 4 friends from elementary school to heroin.
Just sad. Drugs really are for those who are unable to deal with reality and are sensitive to what really is a difficult world.
It’s celebrated in popular culture as a coming-of-age rite- Partying and getting high. While working and supporting yourself has been equally ridiculed in public culture as being a joke. That such a large percentage of people talk about addiction as if it was some evil trick played on innocent victims is a big part of the problem.
In talking with hundreds of addicts, usually at the point they have done a great deal of damage to themselves and everyone around them, they still refuse to look at any point in their lives where they could have lived differently. Of all these people, only one ever took the blame for their own actions as having lead to their present distress. That shifting of blame is the one common denominator. It dooms them as when they shuffle off the responsibility, they have also shuffled off the power to act thus ensuring the result.
Prayers this was the wake-up call he needed and he’s able to find the help that he needs to stay clean!
We need more drug treatment available locally. This isn’t simply one person’s poor life choices, this is a national epidemic. Why are people so desperate to kill their pain? Why are so many dealing with untreated pain? These are questions we need to ask about our society.
Great questions!
As Kym stated there are many reasons. It’s complicated to extreme and individual.
There’s so much pain in the world. If you looked at how this whole thing has been a top down control matrix, you might realize there isn’t enough room for everyone to succeed. Call it what you will, there is less and less room for successful people to expect their children to inherit the same opportunities.
SOME people are just more sensitive to to the reality than others.
“Man beset by anarchy, banditry, chaos and extinction must at last resort turn to that chamber of horrors, human enlightenment. For he has nowhere else to turn.”
Robert Ardrey, African Genesis
It depends on what you call success. If having more stuff or more power is called success then there is always a limitation on the number of successful people. “More” is defined as something in which you compare yourself to others and call yourself successful when the vast majority of people have less. So if everyone was a billionaire, then successful is a trillionaire. It’s being the leader in a rat race to get the most cheese.
On the other hand if successful is called having a life that provides enough to be free to explore what gives you pleasue- and learn not to buy into what other people want to sell you as necessary for a good life- than it does not take all that much wherewithal to have a good life, a satisfying life.
When my father was young, he worked a standard 48 hour week as an employee, which was less than the hours his father put in. For that he could rent a place, provide food for his family and had no benefits. I on the other hand worked a 40 hour week when I started work, could rent a place, provide food and had vacation days, medical insurance and unemployment if necessary.
Somehow people tend to look at what their parents have accumulated at the end of their lives, see that they have more and think they should start at the same place. A little historical knowledge puts it into perspective that they are not doing all that bad despite thinking they should be getting more.
Well said.
Same perspective applies to having ‘less’. Same self serving ‘moral’ greed fits both. One leaves others with lots to sell at yard sales, auctions, keep as heirlooms, give to charity, pay for the costs of leaving the earth, or a multitude of other whatevers.
Having nothing, leaving nothing, spreads the equality of having nothing and leaving nothing.
Hey Kym,
(I know it’s the HSCO Press Release)
“By the time emergency medical personnel arrived on scene, the male’s breathing had greatly improved, his PURSE rate had strengthened, and he was responsive.”
Oh good! I was super concerned about the purse….
Vermin Supreme, I am sure it was just a Typo error. They probably meant to say Pulse.. No one is Perfect all the time at Spelling. Have a nice day.
Gotta love those Freudian Slips.
Pursing my lips and trying not to smile at this…
Fixed now.
also known as pockabooks.
kym, and crew you’re all super. Don’t know how you keep your cool. Life under a magnifying glass all the time every time you type a word. Even when you didn’t
Kindly done corrections are good. As long as folks don’t act they leave rainbows and rose petals everywhere they walk, I like to fix the mistakes.
But it does sometimes seem as other folks have more time on their hands than I do.
Wow, I didn’t know the police carried Narcan doses. I wonder if they carry EpiPens, also.
A less likely scenario, but life-saving none the less.
Great point.
Save the junkies and theives. Tax the people who work and take away there guns so they can’t defend themselves against junkies and theives, then….. let in millions more! Isn’t California great
Not just California, my friend. It is a worldwide scourge.
schools in Mass started caring Narcan over 5 years ago. Eureka is about as late as their ADA compliance which is over 10 years.
This is too. I wonder if there’s a correlation.
Ireland. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX1HXcUIJsU
(non-pro editing, but mssg prevails)
I wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t done it so stupidly.
Wow. Sucks to be you…..
They’re, Their. It’s just a bad dream. Thats all…
Gross generalizations
I am so over the whole needle exchange, save a junky, pity party bull crap. It doesn’t matter what the general public feels about all of this. All the letter writing, going to city council meetings, etc, won’t change what the City already intends to do and has done. All we can do is sit back and see the results a couple of years from now. Will all the needle exchanges ultimately be a success or terrible failure? Will their be less homeless on the streets? Less junkies? I just dont friggen care anymore. I have reached that apathetic point and won’t be wasting another breath on this issue. Good luck Eureka. Good luck Humboldt. I can’t wait to get the hell out of this state
Please do my friend. Everyone will be better for it.
Such an intelligent response Vicki. Go figure
You should care about the people who leave Vickie. It’s the people who work, who bring values and money to the communities. The people who have tried and given all they can to help the community. It speaks volumes when born and bred Humboldt residents who have been the backbone of the community decide to leave because of the conditions and environment of this County. It is easy to pass out a flippant response that everyone will be better off when someone leaves, but in reality that isn’t always the case. Kudos to the viable members of the community who stay. But some people just reach a point where they want to eke a little peace and quiet and calm into their lives before their time on earth is over. Your comment shows the lack of consideration or understanding for those who are just fed up and can’t deal with the circumstances in this area anymore. Who will take these peoples places who decide to leave? We shall see. I only hope they bring a positive vision and hope to the area and not more homeless, tweaker, junkie, transient thieves. Seriously Vickie! Peace to you sister.
We left almost a year ago,there is life outside of California, and lots cheaper also…
Life is ALL about the choices we make.
Drug/Alcohol addiction is a choice NOT a disease!
If you were walking the desert for 3 days with no food or water, someone comes up and in one hand has a gallon of water the other a beer. The water will save your life, the beer will numb you for a couple of hours but you will die. What do you take?
You really, really want to see you family, but the only way to see them is to board a plane with a engine hanging half off and electrical wires shorting out all around you. Do you board that plane and take the risk?
It’s all about the choices we make!
If you drive a car with a tire that only has 3 lugnuts on it, you run the risk of the tire falling off and crashing your car.
If you chose the wrong path, you MUST accept responsibilty.
It is most definately not a disease, it is a choice!
It is far easier to build strong children than to repair broken men?
Most addictions to be honest start in childhood or even the womb!
Teach children to love domestic violence, be numb to fighting, eat junk food (amniotic fluid is flavored by what the mom eats) etc. It all starts en utero.
Want to break the cycle of addiction in society folks…
Plan pregnancies clean up, eat healthy take vitamins for about 4 months then conceive ladies!!!
Talk positive with your children don’t squash dreams and education with supercritical comments IE what are you stupid, why did you do THAT? THAT sounds TERRIBLE or false elevation. IE your the STRONGEST, SMARTEST, FASTEST ETC.
Motivation and a positive mind are developed over time as are lack of motivation and a negative mind.
Teach your your children well…
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
I like your response Mamma. Positive and important. Teach our children well. Invest in our children. Care about our children.
Hmmm
How about teaching your children to stay clear of google.
“Man beset by anarchy, banditry, chaos and extinction must at last resort turn to that chamber of horrors, human enlightenment. For he has nowhere else to turn.”
Robert Ardrey, African Genesis
Best comment of the year!
Here’s just one of the ‘small’ reasons why. https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2016/06/05/qadium-iot-google-security-darpa-cia/#1ebbcc7d3d5f
Whoes paying for this emergency call, ambulance, police, and the medicine??
You are. The bill is due by April 15.
Good job EPD,
you’ve really got your work cut out for you.
I broke my back 20+ years ago and have taken a maintenance dose of Oxycontin every day since. My last refill prescription included a 2-pack of Narcan. Asking questions told me that those in my position are now the recipients of Narcan; at no charge, and it’s the law. Myers in Ukiah is my pharmacy.
Dam, that really sucks AF. (your back).
I’ve been against the anti pain meds campaign, until better pain meds are available. Have you been able to try any of the new and improved non habitual meds if there are any? (not implying your case is habitual, don’t get me wrong here).