Youth’s overdose death renews pleas for Narcan
HARTFORD, CONN. — The death of a 13-year-old student who apparently overdosed on fentanyl at his Connecticut school has drawn renewed pleas for schools to stock the opioid antidote naloxone, as well as for training of both staffers and children on how to recognize and respond to overdoses.
The seventh grader died Jan. 15 after falling ill at a Hartford school that did not have naloxone on hand. City officials vowed Wednesday to put the antidote in all city schools, as part of a wider drug use and overdose prevention strategy.
“Naloxone should be available in all schools, and there should be education on signs and symptoms of overdose and how to use this,” said Dr. Craig Allen, vice president of addiction services for Hartford HealthCare’s Behavioral Health Network. “Unfortunately, a horrible incident like this happens and suddenly everyone’s vision is 20/20.”
Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin said that because of the student’s young age, an opioid overdose did not immediately come to mind when the school nurse and first responders, who did have naloxone, treated him.
That’s why city officials are also proposing more training and curriculum changes aimed at educating staffers, students and community members in substance use awareness and prevention, he said.
In response to the student’s death, advocacy groups are repeating calls they’ve made for several years for schools to stock naloxone — often delivered as a nasal spray under the brand name Narcan — and train educators, support staff and students to recognize signs of opioid use and overdoses, especially because younger people are falling victim more frequently.
The powerful opioid fentanyl has been showing up in marijuana, illicit pills and other substances accessible to school-age children, experts say. Fatal overdoses in the U.S. are at record levels, fueled by fentanyl, and have been increasing among younger people, national data shows.
The National Association of School Nurses has advocated for naloxone to be in all schools since 2015 and for school nurses to help educate their communities about the signs and symptoms of substance abuse.
“It’s a very unfortunate outcome,” Linda Mendonca, the association’s president, said about the Hartford student’s death. “It brings us back to school preparedness and response plans. Having those in place is really critical.”
The association created a “tool kit” for school nurses that includes information on administering naloxone and educating the community about opioid problems. The kit has been downloaded from its website more than 49,000 times, the group said.
Ethan’s Run Against Addiction is one of many advocacy groups that weighed in on social media about the Hartford student’s death. It is named after Ethan Monson-Dupuis, a 25-year-old Wisconsin man who died of a heroin overdose in 2016.
“This tragedy is unbearable. Our nation’s opioid crisis has reached into the lives of children, into places where we want to assume that they are safe,” the group said in a Facebook post Thursday. “ALL public places, including schools, must have Narcan available. We need to educate kids on how to recognize someone who is overdosing and how to use Narcan.”
In addition to a nasal spray, naloxone can also be given as an injection. The National Institute on Drug Abuse says it is a safe medicine and side effects are rare but warns it doesn’t reverse overdoses from other drugs. Training is needed, the agency says, because sometimes more than one dose needs to be given and people who receive the drug can experience immediate withdrawal symptoms.