Kendra was breathless. Sweat on her brow and adrenaline still coursing through her body, she pushed a bicycle slowly across the grass on the courthouse lawn. She balanced a bag on her handlebars in one hand, and a box of naloxone in the other.
In an instant, Kendra reminded those who attended the “Save-a-Life Day” event in downtown Newark why it is important to carry naloxone: She had just helped reverse an overdose.
The timing was auspicious. “Save-a-Life Day” is a day for raising awareness about the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone – often referred to by the brand name Narcan. Volunteers from Newark Homeless Outreach were set up on the east side of the Licking County Courthouse Square on Thursday, Sept. 25, with a card table covered with naloxone and testing strips to detect fentanyl and xylazine. They had pizza and cookies and stickers.
The Newark event was one of the 1,044 “Save-a-Life” events across the United States that day.
Kendra said that she had been with a group of people when one of them began rocking back and forth. All of a sudden, she fell backward to the ground.
“[She] changed color, and we did CPR chest compressions and gave Narcan, and then had to run for more,” she told The Reporting Project. “I ended up calling the ambulance and what not.”
The woman, Kendra said, was revived and then the ambulance arrived, but it was a stressful and chaotic scene.
Trish Perry, of the Newark Homeless Outreach, told The Reporting Project that making sure people have naloxone when they need it is why this event exists – to raise awareness that naloxone saves lives.
The goal, she said, is to get more Narcan on the streets. “To keep people alive.”
Perry was wearing a shirt that read, “This Crew Saves Lives,” as if to reiterate the point. This is the Newark Homeless Outreach’s fourth year participating in this event.
According to Save-a-Life Day coordinator Caroline Wilson, the event began in 2020 in West Virginia’s Kanawha and Putnam counties as a way to make connections, address stigma, and distribute more naloxone into communities hard hit by the overdose crisis. What began as a local pop-up event spread across Appalachia and the East Coast. Last year, there were Save-a-Life events in 35 states and over 84,000 doses of naloxone were distributed.
This year, every state hosted at least one event.
Wilson said that the situation on the ground is better today than when they started Save-a-Life Day.
“Five years ago, I would hear a lot more stigmatizing comments. The stigma has lessened. I don’t know if it’s the work people are doing to normalize [naloxone] or just so many people have been affected by overdose.”
Over 80,000 Americans died of an overdose in 2024 – including 28 people in Licking County, according to the Ohio Department of Health’s Mortality Database – and research in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that nearly one-third of Americans know someone who has died of an overdose.
Wilson said that on Save-a-Life Day, she is out in the community talking with people she might not have encountered otherwise – outside the gas station, the dollar store, a bus stop or a church.
“There are so many people who have stories to tell and are not going to tell that story until they run into us – my grandson died of an overdose, my husband has SUD. People with personal connections,” she said.
‘Not something you can get used to’
After half an hour, clouds moved in, threatening rain over Courthouse Square.
People continued to arrive at the table for naloxone and pizza: Two women on a walk around the square. A father with his son. Some people on bicycles.
“You need Narcan? Want one on a keychain as well?” Perry asked them.
Timothy Newlon, a volunteer with the Newark Homeless Outreach, said that he has used naloxone to rescue friends many times. “Before I used it, I made sure the ambulance was called.”
Kendra’s friend Gary said he has reversed more than 20 overdoses.
“I get tired of seeing it. It’s not something you can get used to,” he said.
“The main thing,” Gary said, “is you gotta stay calm.”
Kendra said, “I’m a panicker.”
They’re friends, so it’s good to have each other around. They both recommend having naloxone at the ready and calling 911.
Be patient, Gary said, let the naloxone get to work. And it’s good to remember to breathe for someone if you don’t have naloxone.
Some public health advocates are reminding people who use drugs that rescue breathing can also be an important intervention. This is especially important to remember as xylazine and other adulterants enter the illicit drug supply and some overdose victims aren’t responding to naloxone alone.
In 1996, naloxone was first widely disseminated in communities. That was about 25 years after it was first approved. Dan Bigg of the Chicago Recovery Alliance helped move the overdose antidote from hospitals and EMTs into the hands of people who use drugs and their loved ones – where it might be most effective. In Ohio,
In the spring, federal budget cuts alarmed advocates and it seemed there would be cuts to much needed funding for naloxone.
Read more: Uncertainty around federal funds may hamper efforts to reduce overdose deaths
Drew Gibson is director of Advocacy at AIDS United, a national organization working to end the HIV epidemic and a supporter of harm reduction like naloxone for people who use drugs. He said that much of the federal funding for naloxone appears safe, and while the Trump administration has voiced opposition to some forms of harm reduction, such as distribution of syringes, it seems to support funding for naloxone distribution.
“Currently, it appears as if naloxone distribution is in the good graces of this administration and not associated with the other harm reduction interventions they oppose,” Gibson said. “We hope that this level of federal support for naloxone continues, but there is no guarantee that it will.”
Critics of naloxone distribution have argued that it enables future drug use or acts as a “get out of jail free” card, according to the Ohio Department of Health, though the department is clear: Naloxone is safe and effective in saving lives, and studies have shown that it “enables recovery.”
‘Narcan worthy’
Mallory Meeker, re-entry coordinator of the Licking County Reentry Coalition, says everyone should carry it.
“That is one of my weapons against this disease. I have it on my desk. I have it in my car – my glovebox, my middle console.”
If people are misinformed about naloxone and don’t carry it, Meeker said, that’s fewer lives that can be saved.
“I wouldn’t be here without Narcan,” she said.
Read more: A recipe for recovery
And she knows there are many others who would not be here without it.
She remembers a time when she had it while living in a hotel in Columbus. She heard someone screaming while running down the hallway at the hotel, “Who has Narcan?!”
She did and so she followed the person up two flights of stairs to a room with a woman with her children. The woman was overdosing and on the floor of the room. Meeker did not panic. She knew what to do. After she administered Narcan, the woman began breathing again and the EMT’s arrived.
“In the moment, it just kicks in; it just rolls in,” Meeker said.
Years ago, while she was in Licking County Day Reporting, a court-ordered alternative to incarceration program, Meeker said, she wrote a poem called “Narcan Worthy” for David Ruderman’s poetry class:
Look into my eyes
What do you see?
Sister, friend, daughter
Most importantly, mommy.
Look into our eyes
We dare you to see
We are human.
All Narcan worthy.
“There’s no criteria to be worthy of Narcan,” she said. “We don’t know who is going to be saving other people’s lives. Who’s going to tell my kids that their mom isn’t worthy of Narcan? My kids wouldn’t have their mom if someone had said, ‘Well, she’s not worthy of Narcan. She shouldn’t get that.’”
Before the rain rolled in, Meeker got up from her desk in her basement office at Adult Court Services on North 1st Street and walked to the Courthouse Square to show her support for the day.
It began to drizzle, and then it poured. Volunteers from the Outreach packed up their gear.
Last Thursday afternoon, 82 doses of naloxone were distributed in Newark.
And at least one life was saved.
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. To learn how to get support for mental health, drug or alcohol issues, visit FindSupport.gov. If you are ready to locate a treatment facility or provider, you can go directly to FindTreatment.gov or call 800-662-HELP (4357).