TUCSON, Ariz. — Some workers at a smoke shop on the eastside are proving just how critical Narcan can be in an emergency.
When a man overdosed on fentanyl outside of Sky Island Smoke and Vape, they managed to help save his life.
For Shayla Flaggman and Jenna Scites, it was a totally normal day at work, until a man walked in and everything changed.
"All I heard was, 'Can you help me? He's overdosing. We need Narcan,'" Scites explained.
"Luckily, we have a whole case that we just got in," Flaggman said. "And so we asked if someone was overdosing, and if they needed an ambulance, and he said 'yes.'"
The two coworkers grabbed two boxes of Narcan from behind the counter, and followed the man out to ally behind their store, where they found his friend passed out.
Scites quickly walked the man who asked for help how to use the medicine.
"His friend administered one bottle of Narcan, and nothing happened," she recalled. "So after the second one, he took a deep gasp of air. Just seeing him on the ground and not breathing was terrifying."
Within minutes, paramedics came and rushed the man to the hospital.
It happened quickly, but for Flaggman, who is almost four years sober as a recovering addict, she couldn't help but imagine herself in the man's position.
"I think that's why it kind of shook me up so much," she said. "Because I was literally looking at it from my family's eyes, and the other end."
In those fleeting moments, neither of them were able to get the man's name, and when the ambulance left, he was gone.
"I'm hoping he's doing okay, and I really hope that he gets the help he needs," Scites said.
"I just hope he lives through this so he can get to that point and be like, 'okay, maybe what I'm doing needs to change,'" Flaggman said.
They say one thing that's clear, is that having Narcan available was the difference between life or death.
"I definitely feel like most businesses should have it," Scites said. "Because it's such a big problem going on right now, that they could help anyone if they need it."
While we followed up with police and firefighters, and called every emergency room in Tucson, no one has been able to tell us how the man who overdosed is doing, but we do know he made it to the hospital.
Sky Island Smoke and Vape got their case of Narcan through an outreach effort, and Tucson Firefighters are expanding their efforts to make it more readily available at more businesses in December.
