Transportation professionals receive an abundance of training in attempts to provide passengers with the ultimate travel experience.
Training often includes the securing of riders and their mobility devices, drug and alcohol related awareness, defensive driving, how to deal with difficult passengers and more. The information received in those training sessions are often employed daily. Some are not so frequent.
Waylon Brown, bus driver for the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate Tribal Transit, recently utilized a training he had received into action. Brown’s actions resulted in the saving of a neighbor's life.
Brown had received Narcan training on Sept. 29 at the Sisseton office of Community Transit of Watertown-Sisseton, Inc. The session taught employees how to administer the Narcan spray to individuals who may be overdosing on opioids. Each participant was issued two cans of the spray.
On the night of Nov. 11, Brown was relaxing at home when he received a call from neighbors indicating a boy may have overdosed and if he still had Narcan spray.
“I went over to their house and the young man wasn’t breathing,” said Brown. “I used the training I had gotten from Josie Deutsch’s program. I had to use two doses on him, but he started breathing and the ambulance got there soon after. The training saved his life.”
Josie Reints, CNP for Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate on the Lake Traverse Reservation. has worked in the Tribal Opioid Response Project. Most recently, she is establishing a Medication for Addiction Treatment Clinic under the Asniyapi Field Health Clinic.
Naloxone (brand name Narcan) is a medication designed to rapidly reverse opioid overdose in an emergency. It is an opioid antagonist and can reverse and block the effects of other opioids. It can very quickly restore normal respiration to a person whose breathing has slowed or stopped because of overdosing with heroin or prescription opioid pain medications.
“Naloxone can be administered by anyone, not just health care workers and it comes in an easy-to-use nasal spray,” said Reints.” Everyone should have Narcan on hand, you never know when you might encounter someone in need of this life-saving medication. “
Narcan training can quickly reverse an overdose by blocking the effects of opioids. Opioids include prescription medications for pain, heroin, and fentanyl.
Local pharmacists can provide information on how to obtain the spray.
“We are all very proud of Waylon and for his actions in saving a life,” said Kathy Holman, Co-Executive Director of CTWSI. (The SWO Tribal Transit is managed by CTWSI). “The training we received could not have come at a better time. Thank God Waylon was there to administer the Narcan.”
Armed with a Tribal Opioid Response Grant from Reints and her organization will continue to address the overdose crisis in Tribal communities by increasing access to FDA-approved medications for the treatment of opioid use disorder as well as supporting the continuum of prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery support services for opioid use disorder and other substance use disorders, including cocaine and methamphetamine.
“Last fiscal year we trained 224 workforce members on how to use Narcan kits to reverse an opioid overdose,” said Reints. “We hold monthly classes and are committed to training individuals or large groups.,” said Reints.
Those numbers Included 54 first responders, 109 community members and 86 substances use disorder treatment clients.
“We plan to bring this training to all employees at our company-wide meeting next summer,” said Holman.
Reints and her team can be reached at (833} 674-3444.
