Chapman University public safety officers trained to use drug to prevent overdoses
Orange County CA Aug 28 2017 For students who have seen the glow of an ambulance outside their dorm window, the reality of excessive drug and alcohol use on college campuses might hit close to home.
Although there have been no opioid overdoses on Chapman University campus as of last spring, according to Chief of Public Safety Randy Burba, Public Safety officers were trained in early August to use naloxone. Naloxone is a drug that can inhibit the effects of opioids, such as heroin or prescription pain killers, if someone overdoses.
“We want to be able to protect and serve our community, and obtaining tools to do that is a great team effort,” Burba said.
In April, Chapman’s Students for Sensible Drug Policy club proposed at a student government senate meeting that Public Safety and Residence Life employees be trained to use naloxone. Burba told The Panther in May that he had been following other universities who had taken this step and that he was open to the idea.
Aimee Dunkle, who founded The Solace Foundation of Orange County in 2015 after her son died from complications due to an overdose in 2012, said that Chapman is the first university in Orange County with school officials who are trained to use the drug.
The foundation, which is an Orange County nonprofit that provides overdose response training, will provide Public Safety with a donation of Narcan in the coming weeks. Narcan is a brand of naloxone that comes in the form of a nasal spray and, unlike the injectable form of naloxone, it does not need to be assembled before being used.
“You have five minutes to save a life,” Dunkle said.
Burba said that the department has not yet finished writing a policy for administering the drug, but said that it will likely be stored in Public Safety vehicles and at the station once they receive a supply.
About 15 Public Safety officers were trained Aug. 3, and 10 were trained by The Solace Foundation of Orange County, Burba said.
Narcan is a nasal spray form of naloxone, a drug that can inhibit the effects of opioids if someone overdoses. Photo courtesy of Aimee Dunkle
“Some universities get it for their health clinics and that’s absolutely pointless, when it’s sitting on the shelf in the nurse’s office,” Dunkle said. “At Chapman, (naloxone is) in the hands of first responders.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, heroin use more than doubled among 18-to 25-year-olds between 2002 and 2013, and nearly half of those addicted to heroin were, or are, also addicted to opioid painkillers.
Director of Residence Life Dave Sundby wrote in an email to The Panther that he doesn’t predict that resident directors or resident advisors will be trained to use naloxone, because in a medical emergency, the first thing Residence Life employees are trained to do is call Public Safety.
Dunkle is continuing to encourage other colleges, rehabilitation centers and inmates in county jails to be trained to use naloxone.
“It’s extremely healing, this work,” Dunkle said. “Saving lives in honor of the children and loved ones we’ve lost. It’s just a beautiful experience.”
Copyright © 2017 The Panther
