Ep. 112 – Helping a Community Help Themselves: Dr. Geoffery Capraro, Brown University

Greg interviews Dr. Geoffrey Capraro, an assistant professor of Emergency Medicine at Brown University. Dr. Capraro has developed an emergency kit, called NaloxBox that makes Naloxone publicly available to bystander rescuers.

Greg asks Dr. Capraro about how he first came up with the idea for the NaloxBox and why it’s so important in treating overdoses. Dr. Capraro explains that the first few minutes after someone overdoses are critical. “The unfortunate thing is that many of these [overdose] deaths would be preventable if the person could be administered Naloxone.” However, he states, Naloxone is not publicly available, even though it’s recommended to be immediately administered by the American Heart Association. “So the bystander rescuer is left waiting six or eight or however many minutes for an ambulance to arrive with Naloxone. And those are critical minutes, the person may be dead or they may have suffered brain damage as a result of the overdose. So we don’t want the bystander rescuer, who suspects an overdose, to not have the proper medicine and a mask to give rescue breaths. So those are simple things that the NaloxBox provides – multiple doses of Naloxone and a mask for rescue breaths.”

Listen to the podcast to discover how Dr. Capraro and his team are installing these NaloxBoxes in public areas and training people to administer the drug along with life-saving assistance.