Manatee fire departments receive $85,000 worth of heroin overdose recovery medication

MANATEE -- Overdose numbers are decreasing in Manatee County, but officials aren't letting that make them complacent.

Rep. Jim Boyd, R-Bradenton, worked with local officials to get naloxone, a drug that helps keep people from dying of opioid overdoses, to all fire districts in Manatee. Working with leaders in the fire districts, he received a donation of 200 doses of naloxone from Kaléo, the manufacturer of the drug. The donation is valued at $85,000.

"In the past year, we've all experienced the tragic effects of heroin and heroin that was laced with other types of narcotics, which resulted in a tragic end for some of these patients," said Brian Gorski, chief of Southern Manatee Fire Rescue.

Ambulances with Manatee County Emergency Medical Services are already stocked with Narcan, the brand name of naloxone, but giving it to fire districts as well ensures overdose victims can be revived by whoever arrives on scene first. When administering naloxone, every second counts to prevent death or brain damage to the victim.

Naloxone is known among first responders as a "coma cocktail."

Deaths from heroin, largely due to the local supply being cut with fentanyl, an extremely potent painkiller, skyrocketed in 2015 to a likely 150 deaths in Manatee and Sarasota, according to the medical examiner. That's up from 63 deaths in 2014 and 19 in 2013.

Overdose calls hit a record 1,352 in Manatee County for the year, up from 700 in 2014 and 325 in 2013. But Chief of Manatee EMS Steve Krivjanik said that number started trending downward after the peak in July, with a sharp decrease in October.

"The situation is still there, but this past month we've only treated 53 patients, and that's down from almost 300 per month that we were doing before," Krivjanik said.

Krivjanik credits that decrease to efforts in the community among lawmakers, community officials and first-responders. Law enforcement, first-responders and hospitals changed how they deal with overdosing addicts in several ways, including increasing the amount of Narcan or naloxone on hand, emphasizing treatment for addicts and, most recently, using the Marchman Act for any addict who overdoses and tries to leave the hospital.

The Marchman Act provides for the involuntary or voluntary assessment and stabilization of a person abusing substances like drugs or alcohol, and provides for treatment of substance abuse.

"That way, when people overdose they have to stay in the hospital for at least two hours, which should keep them from overdosing again right away," Gorski said.

There were multiple cases where an addict would insist on leaving the hospital after recovering from an overdose, go out to find their next fix and immediately overdose again because opioids were still in their system but the naloxone was blocking the effects.

Hospital officials are also working to make sure addicts who come in know their treatment options, Gorski said.

"We want to wake them, but only at the hospital, when you're going to have the right people to handle those patients and give them the choice of entering a program or going with law enforcement," Gorski said.

The Sarasota County Sheriff's Office was the first emergency responder in the area to receive a donation of naloxone, which was also donated by Kaléo, the manufacturer of EVZIO.

EVZIO is a unique way of delivering naloxone because it is a user-friendly auto-injector, which has voice commands once the drug is opened to direct the user how to administer it properly. The sheriff's office received that donation in October, and Boyd said he started working with Kaléo soon after to get a donation to Manatee, where the numbers of deaths and overdoses have been higher.

Gorski said the company made getting the donation simple, and after that they worked on a revision of training protocols and then had nearly all employees in Manatee fire districts trained on naloxone administration in December. The Bradenton Police Department has also expressed interest in getting some of the doses in its vehicles, Gorski said.

But though the decreases in deaths and overdoses are encouraging, Boyd, Gorski and Krivjanik said they're not going to assume heroin abuse will continue to decrease.

Gorski said the next step in 2016 is to focus on prevention and education. That, they hope, will help ensure the numbers stay down.

"We're able to learn from mistakes made in other states," Gorski said. "I think we're going to see these numbers continuously drop."

Said Boyd: "We're not going to take our eye off the ball."

Kate Irby, online/political editor, can be reached at 941-745-7055.

This story was originally published January 5, 2016 at 5:44 PM with the headline "Manatee fire departments receive $85,000 worth of heroin overdose recovery medication ."