Thursday night, the West Virginia State Police used naloxone, a drug that reverses the effects of an opiate overdose, to save a life for the first time.
The incident came roughly a month after troopers in three West Virginia counties began carrying naloxone, according to Sgt. Mark Haynes, of the Princeton detachment.
Haynes said two doses of naloxone were used for one person Thursday after troopers responded to a call about domestic violence in Princeton. One of the people involved had taken an opioid before troopers arrived.
"Unfortunately, we get calls of overdoses a lot more frequently than we would like," Haynes said. "I would imagine we would be putting it to use quite a bit."
Haynes also noted that EMS protocol in the area mandates that, in the event of an overdose, EMS must wait for police to arrive before rendering assistance.
"Sometimes, we can beat EMS there by a minute," he said. "A minute may be all you have to try to save a life."
In response to the overdose crisis in West Virginia, the Legislature passed a law in 2015 allowing police, firefighters and family and friends to administer naloxone to people overdosing on heroin or prescription pain pills. Previously, only paramedics, doctors and other medical professionals could legally administer the medication.
West Virginia has the highest drug overdose death rate in the United States. According to the state Department of Health and Human Resources, 643 people died from drug overdoses in West Virginia in 2015, the highest number since 656 fatalities in 2011.
In April 2015, when the State Police initially was asked about naloxone, West Virginia's largest law enforcement agency hadn't started planning to carry the drug. At the time, spokesman Lt. Michael Baylous cited cost, training and storage issues among the agency's reasons.
In November 2015, it was announced that troopers would carry the drug, but no time frame was set for implementing the new policy.
Haynes said the transition to carrying naloxone has been smooth. The State Police partnered with Community Connections, a nonprofit, to provide training to the troopers.
"The training's not that difficult and it seems like it's pretty easy to use and administer," Haynes said.
Cost remains a barrier, though, according to Capt. Mark Crowder, deputy chief of field services for the State Police.
While a release from then-U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin's office referred to the effort to carrying naloxone in Mercer, McDowell and Wyoming counties as a "pilot program" at the time, no other detachments are currently carrying the drug.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services provided $100,000 in grant funding, meant to target overdoses in rural areas, to provide kits and training for troopers in those counties.
Crowder said the agency is working with the U.S. Attorney's Office to identify grants that could be used to pay for providing the drug to other detachments.
"We tried to focus on the areas where it would be the most benefit at this point," he said. Rural areas have longer wait times for ambulances.
"Of course, we would love to have it," Crowder said.
Reach Erin Beck at erin.beck@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5163, Facebook.com/erinbeckwv, or follow @erinbeckwv on Twitter.