My name is Katy, and I am a Public Services librarian with the Bureau of the State Library. I spend most of my weekdays answering legal reference questions for government employees and the citizens of Pennsylvania.

On a recent weekend, a passenger on my Amtrak train suffered an opioid overdose. When the train attendant made an announcement asking anyone with Narcan to come to car 2, I jumped up and said “ME! I have Narcan!” The train attendant and I rushed through the aisles to reach Car 2, where a young man was on his side, in recovery position, unconscious and barely breathing. A passenger (who was luckily a nurse) was rubbing his chest, shouting at him to stay awake, to just hold on a little longer. Within minutes of the emergency announcement, this nurse, the train attendant, and I got to save a young man’s life by keeping him alive with Naloxone nasal spray (Narcan is its brand name; Naloxone is the generic drug name) until EMS was able to arrive.

Why did I have Narcan, other than the do-gooding nature that attracted me to librarianship in the first place? I am not an opioid user and, to the best of my knowledge, neither are any of my close friends or family members. However, when I learned that in 2022 one Pennsylvanian died of an overdose every two hours, I coordinated with UPMC Harrisburg’s ER residency program to run a Narcan training for our library staff. This past March, we had a 45-minute training with Dr. Amy Wyatt, the head of the ER residency program, and two of her ER residents, Dr. Mulla and Dr. Guerra, where we were trained on how to recognize an overdose:

• Breathing is slow and shallow or has stopped completely
• Blue/grayish lips/fingernails
• Skin may turn blue/gray
• Pulse is slow, erratic or not present at all
• Patient is not responding/minimally responsive

And what to do when we recognize someone overdosing:

1. Call 911 immediately​
2. Give Naloxone​
3. Try to keep the person awake and breathing​
4. Lay the person on their side to prevent choking​
5. Stay with them until emergency workers arrive

They brought us dummy Naloxone kits for us to practice with and answered all our questions, no matter how silly they seemed. Now everyone on our library staff has been trained to recognize an opioid overdose, and over half of our staff has identified themselves as willing to administer Naloxone in case of an emergency. We have multiple Naloxone kits behind the circulation desk and in our public services staff office space.

What can you do?

• Get Naloxone and carry it on you. On a jam-packed train, I was the only person carrying Naloxone, and that shouldn’t be the case because you can get Naloxone mailed to your house for FREE from NEXT Distro. NEXT Distro is an online and mail-based harm reduction platform designed to reduce drug overdose death and drug-related health issues in rural and suburban communities across the United States.

Don’t like sharing your personal information on the internet? Look for harm reduction resources near you. UPMC Harrisburg has a free harm reduction vending machine outside the ER. You can get Narcan, drug testing strips, and more, all for free.

While Naloxone is technically a prescription drug, Pennsylvania’s Department of Health issued a standing order on 11/15/2023, which means anyone can walk into their pharmacy and purchase Naloxone without a prescription.

• Get trained on recognizing and reversing opioid overdoses. You can contact your local hospital or community health center to ask about their outreach and training programs, like I did, but you don’t have to! Administering Naloxone is super easy, and there are plenty of training videos available online. The PA Department of Drug and Alcohol Training advertises two approved training sites Get Naloxone Now and PA Virtual Training Network.
• Talk to your friends, family, and colleagues about the opioid crisis in America, how to recognize an overdose, and carrying Naloxone. If they’re worried about criminal liability, remind them that Pennsylvania has a Good Samaritan law, as well as Act 139, which, according to the Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs, “provides immunity from prosecution for those responding to and reporting overdoses”.

Getting to save a life feels nice y’all! So get your free Narcan today and ride easy knowing you’re prepared.