New Haven Distributes Free Narcan Kits On Overdose Awareness Day

As opioid addiction continues to impact communities across Connecticut, the City of New Haven distributed free Narcan kits on International Overdose Awareness Day.

The city’s health department held a training session Wednesday afternoon on how to use the medication at the Ives Main New Haven Free Public Librabry on Elm Street.

Thirty-eight-year-old Benjamin, who asked we don’t share his last name, knows first-hand how Narcan reverses the effects of an opioid overdose.

“I broke my neck and got hooked on opioids, opiates, whatever you want to call it,” he said.

Benjamin has been on a road to recovery from his opioid addiction for three years.

“Everyone had given up on me,” he said, “and I was ready to give up on myself.”

But then he met George Bucheli, a New Haven health department outreach worker with the city’s syringe exchange program.

“I noticed issues with his arm from lack of good needles, or sterile syringes and it just started from there,” Bucheli said.

At one point during his battle with addiction, Benjamin said paramedics needed to administer Narcan to revive him from an overdose.

“These kits need to be out,” Benjamin said, “it will save a lot more lives and maybe it will help people.”

Bucheli demonstrated how easy it is to assemble the intranasal spray and then how to squirt half the dose up each nostril.

“We train people how to identify an overdose, if the person has changed in color, if they’re vomiting,” Bucheli said.

Benjamin tells NBC Connecticut without the help he got from Bucheli and the health department, he may not be alive today to raise awareness about the dangers of addiction.

“I was at an all-time low and this man really helped me out here,” he said.

Bucheli credits Benjamin for his commitment to stay in treatment.

“Just to see him clean, he shines when he’s clean,” Bucheli said, “and to me it makes it all worth and it helps me too because I used to be a user back in the day and just seeing him shine and what I see every day keeps me clean.”

The Narcan training and distribution in New Haven comes two months after three people died during a rash of fentanyl overdoses that prompted a public health emergency.

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