SACRAMENTO COUNTY, Calif. — A baby almost died Wednesday night from fentanyl poisoning in Sacramento County.
Her story underscores the seriousness of the opioid crisis facing California, but there is something people can do to help fight back. ABC10 spoke with Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District battalion chief Scott Perryman, who knows firsthand the power of the opioid overdose reversal drug Narcan and wants everyone to add it to their first aid kid.
"This is becoming a bigger issue in Sacramento County, and we need to do something about it,” said Perryman.
On Wednesday night, his colleagues responded to a call of a nine-month-old baby girl who was unresponsive. The first responders found she was suffering from fentanyl poisoning and they gave her Narcan. They took her to the hospital, where her tiny heart stopped beating. She needed a second dose of Narcan. She is now expected to survive, and the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office is investigating.
"It's heartbreaking for the family. It's heartbreaking for those who responded, those who tried to resuscitate. And it's heartbreaking to the community,” said Perryman. “This is absolutely tragic. And it's not just this one case. If you look at two weeks ago from this day, we had a 16-year-old die just down the road, and not too long after that, there's a 46-year-old who died just down the road in the same day. So this is becoming more and more prolific."
In 2021, he says, Sac Metro Fire saw about 1,500 overdose cases. Already this year, they've seen 1,700 overdose cases, putting them on track to nearly double from two years ago.
“It's not just the young. It's happening to the old. It's happening to those who are well off financially and those who are not. It's affecting everybody,” said Perryman. “And it's not just here in Sacramento County.”
Fentanyl is so potent, an amount the size of three grains of rice can be deadly. First responders are seeing it laced in with other drugs, like marijuana.
“Fentanyl has been around since the 1960s and we've used it in the hospitals for years. It's a very safe and effective medication that we use all the time,” said Perryman. “It's now that they're starting to use it illicitly. It's manufactured in labs that are not in the United States. And it's so potent, just a little bit of off here, there can cause an overdose and death, just like that. So when they say ‘one pill can kill,’ they're not joking.”
He recommends everyone add Narcan — or the generic ‘naloxone’ — to their first aid kit.
"We don't want any of these accidental overdoses, and they do happen. They happen more often than we want to admit,” he said. “When you say, 'This can't happen to me,' oh, it could. Or your loved one or your neighbor, you never know. If it's not for you, man, save your neighbor's life. Save your community's life."
Narcan is easy to administer by design, with a pressurized spray that shoots up someone’s nose and instantly into their system.
“Narcan is a miracle drug,” said Perryman. “The opioid receptors, Narcan goes in there and it knocks the opioids off there. And it's basically saying, ‘I like this more than I like that.’ So it knocks the bad stuff off and it blocks. So this medication is effective, not just for fentanyl; it's effective for your heroin, your car fentanyl, it's effective for your morphine, it's effective for a lot of things. And it's so easy to use, I think everybody should have this in their first aid kit.”
And if it turns out someone is unconscious for some other reason and isn’t overdosing on opioids, a dose of Narcan will not hurt them.
Perryman explained some major signs of an overdose.
“Generally, they're going to have pinpoint pupils and some other things, but if you see somebody down, gasping for breath, not breathing effectively, and there's a possibility of overdose — use Narcan,” he said.
Once you administer Narcan, he said, call 911.
Back in March, the FDA approved Narcan for over-the-counter sales, so someone does not need a prescription to own it.
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