Quick action, Narcan credited for saving life
Fannin County Sheriff’s Office Investigator Gary Edwards and Corporal Dustin Carder received life saving pins from Fannin County EMA after saving the life of a man who was found at the site of an automobile accident.
The two responded to a call regarding a one-vehicle accident near Flowers Baking off Appalachian Highway, Tuesday, June 30, and made it to the scene before emergency medical services arrived.
Once on the scene, they quickly accessed and assessed the victim, who had struck a tree, before administering first aid, which included using Narcan nasal spray.
Edwards said they had to bust out the window of the car in order to get to the victim.
“The door panel was crushed from striking the tree, so we busted the back window, and Corporal Carder reached around and opened the door,” Edwards said. “That’s how we were able to access him.”
When asked if the victim had overdosed or was unresponsive due to a different medical condition, EMA Director Robert Graham said that while he was not completely sure of the cause, the victim did become responsive after Narcan was administered.
“He did become responsive after the dosage,” Graham said. “He was on the verge of completely not breathing. He just had agonal respirations when they got there.”
The victim was “slightly responsive” when the two arrived on the scene and became increasingly less responsive as they talked with him. It was at this point that their training kicked in, Edwards said.
“Corporal Carder has a lot of experience using that drug, if you will, but just seeing that his condition continued to diminish, and was not recovering, it went to the point that we decided to administer it,” Edwards said.
As Edwards stated, Carder has dealt with experiences like this in the past, many of which occurred in the past year.
“That’s probably the fourth person that I’ve had to use Narcan on,” Carder said. “That was the second person within a month that I’ve used Narcan on.”
According to Carder, seeing overdoes in the county are “a lot more common than a lot of people think.”
Most of the deputies at the sheriff’s office carry Narcan. According to Edwards, at one point the department had a grant that paid for the replacement of used supply, however they no longer have that grant.
Carder said, “It’s a good thing that we have that (Narcan) now, because a lot of times we can make it there faster than EMS can, because we’re throughout the county on patrol, so we can be there within just a couple of minutes sometimes.”