Volunteers Work To ‘Save A Life’
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"Appalachian Save a Life Day" site leaders for Ohio, Marshall, Wetzel, Hancock and Brooke counties gathered at the Youth Services System building Wednesday to stuff 200 bags with Narcan to be distributed across the state today.
The Wheeling bag-stuffing event mirrored efforts across the state yesterday to prepare the resources and information for residents to pick up at more than 300 locations in West Virginia during "Appalachian Save a Life Day."
"We have found it so much more cohesive to work together as a Northern Panhandle to prepare the bags," said Claudia Raymer, executive director of the Ohio County Family Resource Network and Appalachian Save a Life Day regional coordinator. "We all gather simultaneously to put the same stuff in our bags since we serve on the same teams together anyway."
More than 30 states east of the Mississippi participate in "Appalachian Save a Life Day." Ohio County was one of the pilot counties for the program, and Raymer noted the event has "grown every year" since its inception.
"This is our third bag stuffing as we learned the hard way the first year that we need an army to assemble these," Raymer said Wednesday. "Since that first year, it has continued to grow, and every year, it's been an incredibly successful event."
On Wednesday, purple drawstring bags donated by Aetna Better Health West Virginia were filled with Narcan, xylazine and fentanyl test strips, Deterra drug deactivation and disposal System bags, a mini-first aid kit and informational brochures. Miscellaneous items such as stickers, pins and magnets were also included.
In addition to site leaders from each county loading their vehicles with drawstring bags to distribute, each representative took home a One Box, which is a Narcan first aid kit. Lauren Kotz, YSS Region One State Opioid Response Program Administrator, outlined that an instructional video on how to administer Narcan is played when the tab on the front of the One Box is pulled.
Attendees to distribution sites during "Appalachian Save a Life Day" will receive an in-person lesson on administering Narcan.
The Ohio County distribution site will be located on a portion of 18th Street in front of the Catholic Charities building in East Wheeling. The section of 18th Street will be closed between 12 and 4 p.m. for the event.
The Ohio County distribution site will also include a needle exchange program courtesy of the Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department and HIV tests performed by the Wheeling Aids Task Force in a private room inside Catholic Charities.
The event will not only distribute more Narcan in communities but also provide better tracking methods for drug overdoses in the Northern Panhandle. Each Narcan box distributed in the Northern Panhandle will include a sticker depicting a cryptid native to the state and a QR code.
Once scanned, the QR code will take users to a short survey form with questions to report the overdose. The survey also tracks other data points, including where the Narcan was distributed and whether the person who received it survived.
Kotz said the data collection was "vital" as she noted a "big disconnect" between overdoses occurring in at-risk populations and the overdoses being reported.
"When people are overdosing, usually community members are just giving them Narcan and going about their way without reporting it," Kotz said. "If we don't have accurate accounts of the overdoses when we're doing data analysis at the end of each quarter, our numbers don't quite match what we know is happening in the community. This is a way for community members to report overdoses anonymously without any concern for backlash or repercussions of them being involved in an overdose situation."
While this year's Appalachian Save a Life Day also aimed to distribute additional overdose reporting methods in communities, Kotz noted that organizers had already seen their Narcan distribution efforts from past events come to fruition.
"I do outreach daily in at-risk areas, and we've done a really good job of flooding the community with Narcan," Kotz said. "We are one of the smaller regions, so it's easier to get most of the Narcan out there and put it into the hands of the people who need it."
Kotz emphasized the event was to promote "harm reduction," adding that though they would like residents to "remain abstinent" from drug use, drug users cannot enter recovery "if they're not alive."
"Having people carry Narcan on themselves can save lives and be a seed planter for that person to enter into recovery," Kotz said. "Maybe they have to overdose three times, and the third time is what it takes for them to speak with a recovery coach on the post-overdose teams.
It's really just about planting the seed, not necessarily enabling people, but encouraging them into recovery. It takes a person being alive to do that."