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Learn how to save a life from drug overdose

Free event at Greg Moore Youth Centre in Maple Ridge.
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Susan Carr.

The public will be able to train at an upcoming event how to recognize and respond to a drug overdose.

It will be held on Dec. 7 from 7-9 p.m. at the Greg Moore Youth Centre, with doors opening at 6:30 p.m., and is open to everyone on a drop-in basis.

The city’s Strong Kids Team has partnered with Alouette Addictions and Fraser Health in bringing the event to Maple Ridge.

The course will teach participants how to provide lifesaving measures both with and without naloxone, the opioid antidote that is used in Narcan kits.

Those kits are being widely distributed as the province responds to the epidemic of overdoses that has been caused by the drug fentanyl.

Local school trustee Susan Carr, who co-chairs the team with Coun. Kiersten Duncan, said CPR and other measures are also important, because Narcan is not always available.

“You can buy time while you’re waiting for emergency responders to get there,” she said.

Carr said she took a similar course in August and found it valuable to know how fentanyl and other drugs effect the body.

“For me, it created huge awareness and education,” she added. “And it is open to everybody.”

Anyone interested in learning how to save the life of someone overdosing is invited to attend. That could include people who use drugs, their friends and family, or even people taking prescription opioids.

Carr explained that early recognition and response to overdoses is key in saving lives and reducing harm. This course is intended to build more capacity in the community to respond to the public health emergency related to drug overdoses.

 



Neil Corbett

About the Author: Neil Corbett

I have been a journalist for more than 30 years, the past decade with the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows News.
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