How one mother works to provide access to Narcan training after daughter's death
Friday marks the fifth annual National Fentanyl Prevention and Awareness Day, which has the goal of raising awareness about a drug epidemic that costs tens of thousands of lives a year.
For Shelly Elkington, helping others has been her goal since her daughter Casey Jo Schulte died after a battle with addiction 11 years ago, on Aug. 19.
Elkington says her daughter had a disease which required a number of surgeries and put her in a lot of pain. That led to an opioid addiction, and Schulte died when she was just 26 years old.
"Casey was really in the depths of this opioid addiction and not knowing where to go. Even myself as an educated person in the community didn't know what to do, where to go," said Elkington.
To help with her grief, Elkington teamed up with state Rep. Dave Baker to pass a bill that helped bring Narcan and Narcan training to rural Minnesota. The medicine reverses an opioid overdose and brings back normal breathing.
"I've handed out a lot of Naloxone over the years to the parents. To family members. To kids for their parents," said Elkington.
Not long after the bill passed in 2016, a police officer in Elkington's hometown of Montevideo used Narcan to save a woman from a fentanyl overdose. WCCO interviewed Elkington shortly afterwards.
"I got a text message from the chief on that day, that Saturday, that just had a Narcan save and I cried," said Elkington during that interview. "So when you hear about a life being saved, it makes that loss sting a little bit less."
But Elkington believes there's more work to do. And one of the biggest obstacles in battling addiction is battling the stigma that comes with it.
"Wrapping our community resources around families and people who are seeking resources is the best thing we can do to help reduce that. Because people are still afraid to reach out," said Elkington.
The number of fentanyl overdose deaths peaked a few years ago, when nearly 80,000 people died in the U.S. That number has since come down.
Elkington also credits organizations like the Steve Rummler Hope Network for helping people deal with addiction in Minnesota.
