BUTTE — In a nondescript conference room in the back of the Butte-Silver Bow County Health Department, about a dozen members of the public are gathering to learn how to deal with overdose in the community.
A slide show flashes textbook diagrams that help to illustrate what happens on the molecular level during an opioid overdose. The instructor then lists the signs of an overdose: small pinpoint pupils, blue lips and fingernails, slow breathing or gargling while trying to breathe, and cold or clammy skin.
After assessing the signs of a suspected overdose the class is instructed to call 911 or assign someone to call 911 trying to get a reaction out of the overdose victim before administering Narcan.
"When there were six overdoses last week, one of them was my granddaughter and she had Narcan administered three times and then was taken by ambulance," says Mary Rowe, a class participant.
Rowe says her granddaughter survived the overdose but several days later, her grandson also overdosed on fentanyl. Her grandchildren were part of the overdoses that prompted law enforcement and emergency responders to sound the alarm that a dangerous batch of fentanyl powder is in the Mining City.
"It’s a scary world out there with the drugs. That’s why I’m here taking the Narcan class, trying to at least think I’m doing something," says Rowe.
For the Naloxone administration class, Rowe joins about a dozen other people, including several from the medical community. But class instructor Tasha Cameron says learning about opioid overdose can be helpful to anyone.
She starts off the class by explaining which drugs are considered opioids: heroin, buprenorphine, codeine, fentanyl, hydrocodone, methadone, morphine, and oxycodone are all opioids that can cause respiratory distress during an overdose.
"It's all respiratory, so the opioids fit right into those receptors and when there's too many receptors blocked, your breathing stops or slows," says Cameron. The administration of Narcan, also known as Naloxone, frees the opioid from the receptors and stops overdose.
Cameron warns the class that when a victim of an overdose wakes up they experience immediate withdrawals and could become volatile. As the class splits into groups to perform Narcan administration on a mannequin, she runs through several scenarios, including settings involving a minor car accident, a parent overdosing in the lobby of a school, a man fainting on a bathroom floor, and another man passing out in a laboratory next to an envelope filled with white powder.
"We want to make sure that anyone that wants to know how to use Naloxone or how to order it or what to look for in an overdose ... we recommend anybody take this," says Tasha Cameron, the family services manager at the Butte-Silver Bow County Health Department.
Cameron and other employees at the health department are embarking on a monthly Naloxone training course for the general public that will take place at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on the first Thursday of every month.
"We’re hoping that by giving people just a little bit more education that it takes some of the fear away from what people may be feeling," says Karen Maloughney, the Health Officer for Butte-Silver Bow County.
For Mary Rowe, the class is helping her find a way to beat the stigma around opioid addiction and giving life-saving tools that can protect her family.
"Talking about drug use is no different than alcoholism. It’s an addiction and it can touch anybody so you have to be aware. People have to start educating themselves," says Rowe.
You can call 406-497-5020 to sign up for the monthly Narcan administration class at the Butte-Silver Bow County Health Department.
