MONROE — So far, local law enforcement has only had to administer Narcan to overdosing civilians, not K9s or officers.
Green County Sheriff’s Office squads were outfitted with Narcan kits in 2015, said Sheriff Mark Rohloff.
Most recently, his deputies picked up a woman on a warrant who then overdosed and passed out while in custody.
“En route to the jail, she became unresponsive in the back of the squad car,” Rohloff said. Deputy Cody Kanable administered Narcan to the woman and took her to a hospital.
“Our deputies are all trained to recognize symptoms,” Rohloff said.
It’s hard to measure the opioid crisis locally. For law enforcement, “we just hit the tops of the waves, just with the encounters that we have,” Rohloff said.
Green County is in “an island” between the more heavily populated Dane and Rock counties, but that doesn’t mean locals aren’t involved in or experiencing opioid addiction, Rohloff said. Drug activity “kind of spills across the county line.”
Not everyone who abuses opioids comes into contact with police, of course. So a more accurate measure may be the number of opioid-related cases Green County Human Services has, for example.
In 2013, the agency had 20 identified opiate cases — this includes all people seeking drug counseling who report using opioids, whether it be heroin, a prescription medication or another form of the drug, according to Bob Gibson, the agency’s Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse supervisor.
In 2017, the number of such cases had jumped to 68, more than triple what it was five years earlier. This number includes those seeking required treatment as part of the new Green County Drug Court Program, Gibson said.
“We certainly have been trying to get the word out there that help is available,” he said.
Opioid-related hospital discharges have also gone up locally, according to the Department of Health Services. In 2005, there were 20 in Green County. In 2016, the last year for which data is available, 110 were reported. In the interim, this number was topped only once, in 2013. That year saw 118 opioid-related hospital discharges.
When it comes to Narcan, the drug that reverses the effects of opioids, Green County EMS Chief Paramedic Dan Nufer estimates his team uses it at most once a month in Monroe and the surrounding rural communities.
“We don’t use a lot of it. We really don’t see a huge call for it,” he said.
When Narcan is necessary, however, it’s a life-or-death situation. In these urgent cases, he said, it’s helpful to have police carrying Narcan because they can often get to the scene of the overdose faster, especially when it’s out in a rural area.
“We’re very happy that they’re carrying Narcan,” he said. “Oftentimes when we do get called out, officers have already administered the Narcan intranasally.”