Sen. Kaine takes part in Project REVIVE! training held in Lebanon
LEBANON, Va. — If a program piloted in Southwest Virginia and metro Richmond goes well, saving someone from an opioid overdose could be as simple as administering an EpiPen.
The first public training for REVIVE!, a project overseen by the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, was held Thursday afternoon in Lebanon. In the pilot area -- in metro Richmond and in Washington, Wise, Russell, Buchanan, Lee, Scott, Dickenson and Tazewell counties -- organizations like One Care of Southwest Virginia are training folks to recognize the signs of drug overdose and administer the nasal spray that will block the drugs and, hopefully, save lives.
U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, was one of about 50 who went through the two-hour training Thursday in Lebanon.
"This is a problem that doesn't know race, doesn't know money," he said of drug overdoses in the state. "I'm taking the training so I can be certified to help somebody, but also so I can learn about it."
Southwest Virginia was selected for the pilot program because of the high number of drug overdose deaths here, said Jason Lowe, a behavioral health program analyst in the Office of Substance Abuse Services in Richmond.
Sarah Melton, an associate professor of pharmacy practice at the Gatton College of Pharmacy at East Tennessee State University, led the training. She asked around the room how many people knew someone who overdosed on an opioid drug -- hydrocodone, heroin, oxycodone -- and most raised their hands.
"It's time for us to take back our own communities and stop these overdose deaths," she said.
She said most of the overdose drug deaths in this region are from prescription medication abuse, but heroin is making its way into the area more quickly than officials first thought.
Participants were given a kit with naloxone, a drug that blocks the opioid drug from sitting on the receptor in the brain, and helps people start breathing again, if they've stopped. It also makes them undergo withdrawal symptoms almost immediately.
The idea of the training is that if people have the naloxone on hand, they can administer it quickly while waiting for emergency personnel to arrive and take over treatment. Naloxone won't harm a person if they've overdosed on something other than an opioid, but it won't work, either.
"I didn't fully grasp how [big] of a problem [opioid overdose] was until I was last here in April for a few days and I was hearing about it everywhere I went," Kaine said, adding when he realized the training would be held he thought it would be a good opportunity to learn. "It gives me some ideas about some other things we can do."
Kaine will wrap up a four-day sweep of Southwest Virginia today, when he’ll tour Bristol Compressors. He also spent time working with People Inc. in Grundy, toured the new Dickenson County schools in Clintwood and was at Abingdon's Thursday Night Jams concert event.
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