Every hospital in Monmouth and Ocean Counties will exchange ready-to-use new doses of the overdose antidote naloxone, free of charge, for the empty syringes used to resuscitate the overdose victims, under a partnership agreement announced today by Acting Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher J. Gramiccioni and Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph D. Coronato.
The hospitals affiliated with Barnabas Health, Meridian Health and CentraState Medical Center are absorbing 100% of the cost of the antidotes exchanged with law enforcement officers, according to Charles Webster, spokesman for Gramiccioni’s office.
“Protecting our citizens is our most basic and fundamental function in law enforcement. We can’t do it alone, so we count on help from friends and partners who cooperate with us and who share, in some form or fashion, the same responsibility and commitment in helping to protect human life. It is these partnerships that make us even better. Through this partnership, our local hospitals are standing with us as we fight the deadly epidemic of heroin or prescription opiates drug overdoses,” Gramiccioni said.
Narcan Monmouth County First Assistant Prosecutor Marc LeMieux demonstrates how Narcan is administered. FREEHOLD – Monmouth County has become the second county in New Jersey to train every police officer with the opioid antidote Naloxone, also…
West Long Branch Police Chief Larry Mihlon: ..”the deadly nature of heroin doesn’t care who you are…It just kills you”
Transcript
West Long Branch Police Chief Larry Mihlon:As a police officer, you never really think about that this is going to hit you at home. Well, April 13th of 2013, the Long Branch Police Department responded to a call of a 22-year old young man who had stopped breathing and had no pulse. That young man was in my house because it was my son. The reason why I put myself out here and I relate this story in public is that I think it’s extremely important for people to realize that the heroin epidemic and the deadly nature of heroin doesn’t care who you are. It doesn’t care what your father does. It doesn’t care whether there are good parents or bad parents. It doesn’t care if you’re a good kid or a bad kid. It just kills you. This rollout of Narcan, in my eyes, is another fantastic tool for law enforcement to do the other mission that law enforcement has and that is to save peoples’ lives.
BRICK — Police officers and first responders in Ocean and Monmouth counties will begin carrying naloxone, a drug that can counter the effects of an opiate overdose, Gov. Chris Christie said today as New Jersey continues its years-long battle against…