By Sarina Trangle
The Ridgewood Volunteer Ambulance Corps became the first EMS agency in the city to successfully employ a drug to combat opiate overdoses when three EMTs sprayed naloxone up the nose of an unconscious man struggling to breath at a subway station this past weekend.
Ridgewood EMTs Sarah Elbeyali, Travis Kessel and Abraham Downes were called to a train station where police were assisting the man on the floor, according to Sean Graves, deputy director of operations for the Ridgewood corps.
Once the EMTs determined he was probably suffering from an opiate overdose, Graves said they administered the drug and the patient regained consciousness and began independently breathing within 10 minutes.
He was taken to a hospital where he was listed in stable condition, Graves said.
“We were the first EMS agency in the city to administer it successfully,” Graves said, noting that the Regional Council of EMS confirmed the Ridgewood corps’s pioneering act. “The state just introduced it about a month ago and we adopted it pretty quickly.”
Naloxone is considered an opioid antagonist because it travels to the same places heroin, morphine, codeine, oxycodone and other opiates go in the brain and functions as a shield, preventing them from reaching receptors and potentially causing a respiratory shutdown.
Medical professionals say the drug should be administered when people display symptoms of an opiate overdose, which include unconsciousness, inadequate breathing or no breathing and constricted “pinpoint” pupils.
Although the drug was patented decades ago, Graves said it has traditionally only been used by paramedics. Last year the state began introducing naloxone to EMT teams within the city, which number much greater than paramedics.
He believed Ridgewood’s corps was one of a few volunteer units that had naloxone, but that many volunteer ambulance corps, like the Fire Department’s units and private ambulance crews, did not have the drug.
Graves said Ridgewood’s corps quickly purchased Narcan, a brand of naloxone that costs $25 to $35 per kit, and sent members to training administered by the state Department of Health.
He estimated the Ridgewood Volunteer Ambulance Corps responded to about 40 opiate overdoses annually.
“It’s been pretty steady,” he said.
Reach reporter Sarina Trangle at 718-260-4546 or by e-mail at strangle@cnglocal.com.
