First responders: Bad batches lead to ‘unresponsive people at stop lights,’ more Narcan use (2024)

Kathleen Locke is haunted by the overdose deaths of three friends and the emergency treatment they never received.

That's why the 39-year-old became a paramedic in November of 2023. Today, she works for Medic EMS in Davenport.

"I was working as an EMT in 2020, and that's when I lost Elsa," Locke said.

Elsa was the first of her friends to die. An opioid overdose killed her in her apartment. Locke found her on the morning of March 10, 2020.

Locke didn't give her friends' real names, out of respect for their family's privacy.

"It wasn't a call for service. I wasn't on the job," Locke said. "I was Elsa's friend, and I had a key to her apartment.

"She didn't show up at work, and I went looking for her. I just found her there, and I panicked. I didn't know how to help her. She was dead, and I couldn't help her in any way."

"But I didn't know that at the time, immediately after I found her. All I remember is feeling so powerless and unable to help my friend."

Elsa and Locke worked in the food service industry together and became friends after going for a few after-work drinks.

"We were complete opposites," Locke said. "She was outgoing, and I'm quiet and reserved. But we made an instant connection."

Locke said she knew Elsa occasionally used cocaine.

"I think the cocaine she had ended up having fentanyl in it," she said. "It just killed her."

Locke said she always will wonder if a readily available drug, naloxone, might have saved her friend. It's a treatment she and other first-responders deploy at overdose scenes throughout the Quad-Cities and across the country.

The number of times Narcan, a brand name for naloxone, has been used in Scott County since 2014 offers yet another window into the prevalence of overdoses in the Quad-Cities.

Use of Narcan has risen over last decade

Naloxone is an opioid antagonist used to reverse or reduce the effects of opioids that have caused an overdose. It can be administered intravenously or injected into muscle by healthcare workers and first responders.

It also can be delivered in the form of a nasal spray. And that means people without medical training can administer it to someone in the throes of an overdose.

Ibrahim Tarawneh, the Naloxone Grant Coordinator at UnityPoint Health's Robert Young Center, explained how naloxone works.

"Once it is absorbed, naloxone takes two or three minutes to reach our opioid receptors and push off the opioid," he said. "The naloxone replaces the opioid and acts like a shield to protect the receptor.

"But naloxone will wear off, usually after 30 to 90 minutes. Naloxone is a temporary solution to an overdose. If you are administering naloxone to someone going through an overdose, you must call 911. Medical care is essential after administering naloxone."

Medic EMS responds to emergency calls throughout the majority of Scott County, and offers a window into the use of Narcan, charting its use of the drug since 2014, as it became used more and more by first responders.

In 2014, Medic EMS had 134 calls where Narcan was used. Its use grew steadily, and by 2018 that number increased to 323. The number of calls where Narcan was used peaked at 416 in 2021, before decreasing to 387 in 2022 and 366 in 2023.

'A bad batch' can cause a run for emergency responders

Kyle Beale-McDonald is the training and development manager for Medic EMS and is a paramedic.

The 30-year-old said overdose calls are "fairly common" in Davenport.

"It's not just opioids," Beale-McDonald explained. "And it's not just street drugs. People can overdose on their medications they are prescribed. The truth is, we probably get more of the accidental prescription overdoses than we do of overdoses caused by street drugs like heroin or illegal fentanyl."

Beale-McDonald said sometimes overdose calls stand out.

"When I was on the streets, it wasn't uncommon to get a call a week. That's overdose calls because of prescription drugs, or street drugs," Beale-McDonald said. "And then you can have runs and it's obvious there's some kind of bad batch out there."

Chuck Gipson is a paramedic for Medic EMS and serves as its quality and compliance manager. He has been an EMT for 30 years and has seen the waves of different types of street drugs pass through Quad-Cities communities.

"A bad batch is really a good batch for someone who uses heroin," Gipson said. "You have to understand that heroin users, fentanyl users, they want the stuff that's causing overdoses.

"Those addicts are chasing their first high, the way they felt when they used heroin for the first time. It's why fentanyl was introduced into mixtures of heroin. So a batch that knocks some people down, that's the batch everyone is going to be looking for."

Jonathan Day is a nine-year veteran with Medic EMS who started as an EMT and today serves as a dispatch supervisor for MedCom. He hears the calls that send paramedics to overdose scenes and has been to his share.

"You always know when there's a bad batch," he said. "You'll have a weird couple of days where we will have unresponsive people at stop lights, or in gas station parking lots.

"It is very easy to get fentanyl and the next thing you know the person is unresponsive, shallow breathing, and they can very easily die if they aren't treated."

Overdose can recur after Narcan wears off

Beale-McDonald and Gipson said Narcan offers on-scene treatment that can be the difference between surviving an overdose and dying.

Shane Peitscher has been a paramedic with the Bettendorf Fire Department since 2011. He said he has always carried Narcan.

"A possible overdose is very distinct," he said. "You often see a person in an altered mental state, and a very slow respiratory rate— two to four breaths per minute, and sometimes even lower. They will have constricted pupils."

Peitscher, Beale-McDonald and Gipson said a person showing those symptoms is immediately given a two-milliliter dose of intravenous Narcan. Or paramedics can administer a four-milliliter intranasal dose.

"We are to the point that if we have a suspected heart attack, we just give the Narcan," Day explained. "It doesn't do any harm and we see benefits of just getting it on board."

All of the paramedics interviewed for this story, along withTarawneh from the Robert Young Center, said there is still a chance for overdose after the Narcan wears off.

"You give the Narcan, and the person comes back," Peitscher said. "And they will be back, but after that Narcan wears off, whatever opioid is in their system can reassert itself.

"The person can go back into overdose."

All of the first responders and healthcare workers interviewed for this series stressed the importance of going to the emergency room after Narcan is deployed.

"We've been called back to scenes where, an hour before, we administered Narcan and the patient refused to be transported," Gipson said. "We can find the same person, overdosing again. It has happened."

Fentanyl takes two more friends

Locke works with Beale-McDonald, Gipson and Day at Medic EMS. Every day she answers calls and works to help others. Along with the memories of Elsa, she often thinks of two other friends lost to overdoses.

She thinks about what might be different if they had someone with them who called 911 and access to Narcan.

Megan was 37 when she died in November of 2022.

"We always kind of knew each other and knew the same people," Locke said. "And we moved into the same apartment building, and our boys were like a year apart in age.

"They became friends. So we became friends."

Locke said Megan was an "equal opportunity addict" and used a number of drugs. Her favorite was pressed fentanyl pills.

"I know she went to rehab two times and she was struggling," Locke said. "I think maybe she was living with another couple, maybe.

"All I know is that she was in someone's house and she died in the bathroom. They found her in there."

Locke said people who overdose and die aren't just killing themselves.

"They are hurting their families and friends," she said. "It's like a wave that hits everyone. And it hurts so many people."

Almost a year after Megan's death, Locke's friend Chris died from an overdose of fentanyl in October of 2023.

"I met Chris through some friends and we were close. He was a good friend," she said. "He was a veteran and I know he struggled with injuries.

"When I met him, he would do some cocaine at parties. And then that turned into an everyday thing."

Locke said Chris changed when he was introduced to straight fentanyl.

"Once he did it, it took hold," she said. "But he got clean. He was clean for a year and half. And then he relapsed, and he went back into a treatment program."

Locke said a few days after finishing the program, Chris used fentanyl and died.

"For people with depression and mental health issues, drugs are easier to get sometimes than real help," she said. "Chris needed help and sometimes he used drugs.

"There was no one around to help him. No Narcan. The fentanyl killed him."