VANCOUVER — When a teenage girl collapsed on the SkyTrain in Coquitlam, B.C., passengers calling 911 thought she had fainted or was having an epileptic seizure.
It was only when paramedics administered naloxone that some realized she’d overdosed on an opioid, said Chloe Goodison, who was sitting beside her.
“She shot back to life,” recalled Goodison, who was jarred by the thought that a girl who seemed about her own age of 16 could have died, with no one around her immediately able to help.
It was a life-changing moment for Goodison, who would be inspired to study health sciences and set up a group called NaloxHome that educates high school students about what an overdose looks like and how to use naloxone.
The Simon Fraser University student is among a number of advocates who deliver overdose education in B.C. schools but want such information made a mandatory part of the curriculum.
They say it is a matter of urgency in a province that has suffered more than 10,000 deaths since it declared the toxic drug supply to be a public health emergency in April 2016.
“In my head, I was thinking, ‘There’s no way. She’s someone who’s around 16 and looks like she’s from an average Coquitlam school and household,’” Goodison said of the experience on her way home in August 2017.
“She was saved by paramedics, but I just always reflect on what if someone on that train knew anything about the signs of an overdose or was carrying naloxone? We were already into an overdose emergency, and nobody knew anything about an overdose.”
