Utah Naloxone surpasses significant milestone in overdose reversals

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Naloxone has surpassed a significant milestone in a fight against the opioid crisis: over 12,000 reported overdose reversals.

Dr. Jennifer Plumb, medical director and cofounder of Utah Naloxone, joined KSL NewsRadio to discuss the big achievement.

Below is a partial transcript of this interview as well as the full podcast.

---

KSL NewsRadio edited the following transcript for brevity and clarity.

HOST JEFF CAPLAN: Tell us what this milestone is.

GUEST DR. JENNIFER PLUMB: We are an organization who supplies education, information, and also Naloxone rescue kits across the state to help people if they’re ever around someone who’s having an opioid overdose.

We were compiling our data … and realized we had crossed over 12,500 reports of Utahns saving a life around them. These are not medical folks. These are laypeople. These are moms and dads and brothers and sisters and spouses and law enforcement folks.

We also realized … over 1,000 times now we’ve had law enforcement officers report to us that they’ve used Naloxone as well. So this is for us an opportunity to thank Utah for stepping in and saving lives.

CAPLAN: So (over) 12,000 times someone was overdosing, they were administered Naloxone by a member of the public?

PLUMB: Yes, not at all a medical person … These aren’t our typical, you know, nurse, doctor, EMTs, paramedics. These are everyday Utahns.

Related: Daily opioid prescriptions in Utah reduced by 41%

Naloxone’s a pretty phenomenal substance. The nice thing about it is that it can save a life, but you can’t hurt someone with it. And so putting it in the hands of, you know, not medically trained people gives them the opportunity to save somebody. And also, maybe they don’t know 100% what it is, they would never actually hurt someone.

CAPLAN: Where do you find Naloxone if you see someone overdosing?

PLUMB: It’s actually all across the state. You can get it in a variety of places. There’s now an over-the-counter form, so people can go into some of the larger chains, Walgreens, Walmart, those sort of places, and get it over the counter.

Utah Naloxone, our organization which is housed in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Utah, we do virtual trainings every two or three weeks. And people who join us, we go ahead and send kits in the mail to them in Salt Lake County and up here on the Wasatch Front.

There’s kits available in libraries. There’s kits available in fire stations across the state. So we really want people to feel like they can get equipped and, with a pretty brief education, know how to save a life.

Listen to the podcast below for the full interview:

Related: Utah Naloxone provides reminders about the dangers of fentanyl