NJ's Camden County deploying virtual reality to teach students about naloxone
CAMDEN, N.J. (CBS) -- Camden County in New Jersey is deploying state-of-the-art virtual reality technology to teach students and teachers how to respond to opioid overdoses.
The county will be distributing virtual reality headsets to local schools to quickly teach thousands of people how to administer the opioid-reversing drug, Narcan.
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"We've learned it's not only imperative that adults understand this in Camden County, but it's crucial that we reach our youth as well," Camden County Prosecutor Grace MacAulay said. "We want this life-saving effort to be as easy and commonplace as someone would feel reaching for a fire extinguisher when there's a fire."
The county partnered with the University of Pennsylvania to create the virtual reality training video.
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Kyle Cassidy said they've already had success showing the video to children in Philadelphia.
"The kids lined up to watch it," Cassidy said. "Then when they watched it, they got in line to watch it again."
According to Camden County, from January to October 2023, there were 10,200 administrations of Narcan across the state of New Jersey and 1,312 in Camden County.