For the second time in a month, Ada deputies revive Idahoan who OD’d on opioids

Just two weeks after using an opioid overdose-reversing treatment to revive a teenage girl, Ada County deputies again used the antidote to treat an Idahoan who had overdosed.

According to an Ada County Sheriff’s Department blog post, Kuna Police responded to a report of a possible overdose in the 200 block of E. 2nd Street around 5:30 a.m. on Sunday, Dec. 16. While Kuna Police officer Bryce Bienz drove to the apartment building, Ada County Sgt. Derek Savage retrieved two doses of NARCAN, a naloxone nasal spray, from the nearby Kuna Police station.

When law enforcement arrived, they found a man lying on the ground.

“His skin was pale, his lips were purple and he was barely breathing — all common signs of an opioid overdose,” the blog post said.

Savage used two doses of NARCAN on the man, who regained consciousness about 13 minutes later. The man was then transported to a local hospital. Police have not identified the 30-year-old man but say he had overdosed on heroin and methamphetamine.

Sheriff’s deputies began carrying naloxone in 2017 amid a spike in opioid overdoses and deaths. The two recent cases mark the only two times deputies have had to use the antidote since then.

In the blog post, officials said they hope the two incidents are a coincidence, “not a sign of a developing trend.” They said it can be difficult to define the “opioid epidemic” and its effects locally.

“It’s rare that cases of people who survive overdose rise to the level of news because those cases are usually handled by paramedics or get treated in emergency rooms,” officials said in the post. “They often don’t result in any kind of criminal charge, as the main focus is to save lives.”

According to the sheriff’s office, overdoses are becoming more common. Deputies responded to another report of an overdose in the 4000 block of Lonesome Lane on Wednesday, where paramedics had already used NARCAN to revive a 27-year-old man who had overdosed on heroin.

Unlike the sheriff’s office, paramedics have administered NARCAN frequently — more than 70 times in 2018, ACSO said. This year, 105 people died from drug overdoses in Ada County. Sixty-five of those deaths were from opioids, according to the Ada County Coroner’s Office.